The economic crisis in Afghanistan continues: now the risk is to remain in the dark. A national blackout could hit the country that has fallen into the hands of the Taliban for months.
This could happen because the debt to neighboring states, which supply electricity, is constantly increasing. At the moment, in total, the Afghans have to pay $ 62 million worth of electricity alone. 51 million of these were contracted with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Turkmenistan.
Afghanistan spends between $ 22 and $ 25 million on electricity each month, numbers that reveal how the current debt has accumulated since the Taliban’s return to power. The alarm was raised by the Afghan electricity company, Dabs, which asked the UN for 90 million dollars to pay the debt and not be forced to ask for more money from citizens and families in increasing difficulty.
“We have asked citizens and factories to pay, but the economy is currently in pieces. We asked the UN for 90 million dollars and we are waiting for an answer. At the moment we can only ask neighboring countries not to suspend the supply of energy, ”said Safiullah Ahmadzai, director of Dabs.
Furthermore, according to the United Nations World Food Program, only 5% of Afghan families have enough food to eat every single day – a picture that is worrying given that the banking system is also close to collapse. Suffice it to say that according to the World Bank, about 40% of the country’s GDP depends on international aid.
Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry announced that it has resumed issuing passports and that 25,000 new documents are ready to be issued to citizens who had requested them before the Taliban returned to power.