Afghanistan: Retirees protest in Kabul, demand Taliban pay pensions amid financial crisis

As Afghanistan remains on the brink of financial collapse, dozens of retired employees and veterans who served during the previous government demanded their due pensions from the Taliban regime. On Saturday, retirees gathered in front of the Department of Retirement in Kabul to demonstrate their grievances and urge the Taliban's interim Cabinet to release pensions, required to support their families, TOLO News reported.

Since the Taliban's takeover of Kabul in August this year, Afghanistan has been pushed into a constantly growing humanitarian crisis with social media flooding with visuals of people taking to the streets to demand their rights.

"We demand our rights. They say there is no money at the bank and the system is broken. All the retired employees are here but they don't pay as we have no money even buy bread," Gul Khan, a retired employee of the former government told TOLO News.

With the coming winter, the conditions have continued to deteriorate in Afghanistan with citizens unable to make meagre payments to sustain through a week. "I haven't paid my rent for the past six months. We have a lot of problems this winter," Lailuma, another retired employee demanding pension rights, told Tolo News.

Meanwhile, the Department of Government Pensions and the retirement directorate informed TOLO that the caretaker Taliban cabinet is working on a plan to facilitate the payments for retired employees and veterans.

"Approximately, 9.2 billion Afghans have been paid for the civil and military retired employees but around 30,000 retired employees are yet to be paid," Mohammad Yahya Tareen, head of the retirement directorate said.

Release of Central Bank assets will solve economic problems: Taliban PM

Afghanistan's economy has taken a nosedive after the Taliban's takeover of the country forced the international community to freeze financial aid and central bank assets, paralysing local banks and businesses in the war-torn nation. Despite warnings from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the US has refused to release $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank and stopped shipment of cash, citing the Taliban regime's failure to comply with the international standards of an inclusive government. Following the move, international financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank have also blocked financial aid to the nation.

Taliban leaders, since then, have been constantly urging the international community to unfreeze assets with the latest appeal coming from Prime Minister of the interim Cabinet in Afghanistan, Mullah Hassan Akhund on Friday.

Addressing a presser in Kabul, Akhund said that Afghanistan's economic problems will be solved if the central bank's assets are released, TOLO News reported. Assuring world powers of working towards improving the human rights situation, Akhund claimed that the Taliban government has provided women with their rights and an active education system. However, with repeated reports of violence and protests, what seems to experts, is far from the moderate picture the Taliban painted of themselves within a few days of the takeover.

(Image: @MullahHassanAkhund/Twitter/AP)