Former Afghanistan Finance Minister Khalid Payenda is driving an Uber cab in Washington DC, the US capital. He resigned from his post a week before the Taliban took over Afghanistan about 6 months ago. Payenda’s relations with the country’s former President Ashraf Ghani had deteriorated at that time.
Payenda reported that he earned a little over $150 for six hours of work one night earlier this week. It is known that once as the Finance Minister of Afghanistan, he had a US-backed $6 billion budget. After coming to America, he was reunited with his family. He told that coming to Washington from Kabul was an adjustment for him.
‘I have no room right now’
Afghanistan’s former finance minister said he was grateful for the opportunity to be able to help his family. He said that I have no place right now. I am not from here and I am not from there. It’s a very empty feeling. He is also serving as an Assistant Professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.
What does Payenda say about America?
Payenda said, “I saw a lot of inequality and we failed. I was part of the failure. It’s hard when you see people’s suffering and you feel responsible.” By making Afghanistan the focus of post-9/11 policy, the US betrayed its commitment to democracy and human rights, he said. Maybe there were good intentions in the beginning but America probably didn’t.
‘Whatever was made of cards…’
Payenda found out about the fall of Kabul on television and then on Twitter. He said, “Everything we built was a house of cards that came crashing down this fast. It was a house of cards built on a foundation of corruption. Some of us in the government chose to steal. We took our People cheated.”