Bank problems cause Afghan businesses to founder

KABUL: A number of industry officials and factory owners said that the recent disruption of the country’s banking system is causing serious problems for their operations.

The businesspeople said they are unable to withdraw money from their accounts and therefore cannot pay their daily operational costs and wages of their workers. A marble-selling company in Maidan Wardak province is facing problems due to the banking situation in the country. “Since the banks have stopped functioning, we do not have money to pay our laborers’ wages and we halted our operations,” said Rahmatullah, the company head.

The company previously extracted and processed 150 tons of marble each day, its officers said, but now it has stopped its operations due to lack of available funds.

The business officers and workers urged the Taliban to pay attention to the private sector’s problems.

“There are many challenges. The Taliban should pay attention to the private sector and resolve our problems,” said Noorullah, a factory worker. Local residents who used to work at the company also urged the Taliban to create work opportunities for the people. “Before this a number of youth were working at the business.

Now that it has stopped its operations and the extraction of marble stone in the marble mine has stopped, they are jobless,” said Nasir Ahmad, a local resident of Maidan Wardak. Local residents said that in addition to unemployment, the prices of food have also increased.

They called on the Taliban to implement development projects in the province to create jobs.