That the situation is degenerating in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Western troops will soon be understood also by the cost of living, which is about to skyrocket due to the decision by OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) to ban the circulation of the dollar in the Asian country. The alarm was sounded by the governor, or by now ex governor, of the Afghan central bank (DAB, Da Afghanistan Bank), Ajmal Ahmady, who through a series of tweets explained the country's monetary situation and the fear that the Taliban could further damage, especially at the expense of the poorest segment of the population. Ahmady is among those people who managed to escape from Kabul on military planes for security reasons: “Did I have reason to worry? – wrote the economist in a disturbing post on Twitter – This is the text someone sent me: 'The Taliban have come looking for you. They are asking about DAB governor Ajmal Ahmady'. Whatever their personal opinions, I also had many personal enemies. Or maybe they just wanted to say hello…”.
Ahmady, who in his tweets is also very controversial with the previous government ("I can't forgive the president's flight without having thought of a transition plan"), explains all the stages of the imminent inflationary crisis: "Control over capital and the restricting access to the dollar was not a central bank decision, the Taliban should know that. It is a direct result of the US sanctions policy implemented by OFAC." What will happen now? “The Treasury will freeze assets, the Afghan currency (the Afghani, ed) will depreciate and inflation will rise as currency switching is very high. This will harm the poor with the increase in food prices”, Ahmady writes on Twitter, while the volatility of the Afghan is out of control and the exchange rate against the dollar has shot up to 83,5. The tragedy is that now those who had accounts in dollars, i.e. a large part of the population following 20 years under a sort of American protectorate, will no longer be able to access them and will have to convert them into Afghans, the local currency, with an increasingly unfavorable exchange rate .
“I think the local banks have told customers that they cannot return their dollars, because DAB has not supplied dollars to the banks – Ahmady writes on Twitter again -. This is true. Not because the funds were stolen or kept in a vault, but because all the dollars are in international accounts that have been frozen. I write this because I have been told that the Taliban are asking central bank personnel for the location of the assets. If this is true, it is clear that they urgently need to add an economist to their team…,” the governor of Afghanistan's central bank added wryly. “The Taliban won militarily, but now they have to govern. It's not easy,” he continued. “The fact that they do not have access to funds in dollars – I repeat – is because the Taliban are still on international sanctions lists and I believe this will be confirmed. I can't imagine a scenario where OFAC would give them access to those funds."
"Therefore - concludes Ahmady in his long series of interventions on Twitter -, we can say that the funds accessible to the Taliban are perhaps 0,1-0,2% of total international reserves of Afghanistan. Not so much… And without the approval of OFAC, it is also unlikely that any donors will support the Taliban government”. In short, Afghanistan is also increasingly isolated from a financial point of view and a tragic liquidity crisis is expected in the coming weeks, with inflation and the price of basic necessities that will begin to become inaccessible for a large part of the population. The international community should also take charge of this.
