US seeks to sidestep Taliban in $3.5 billion Afghan aid plan

Bloomberg

The US will put $3.5 billion in Afghanistan’s central bank reserves under the control of a Swiss-based oversight board to pay for limited financial services in the country while ensuring the Taliban regime doesn’t get access to the money, the US Treasury Department said.
The funds, which the US froze after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last year, will be held at the Bank for International Settlements and distributed with the consent of a four-member board — one from the US, one from Switzerland and two Afghans not associated with the Taliban.
The funding will support Afghanistan’s macroeconomic and financial stability, two senior Treasury officials told reporters on condition of anonymity.
It will fund electricity payments and pay arrears at international financial institutions, but most of it will be set aside until the board decides that Afghanistan’s central bank has implemented money-laundering controls and has sufficient political independence.
The central bank, known as DAB, will have to demonstrate that it has expertise, independence and capacity to regulate inflation, among other metrics, the officials said. The Afghan members will be Anwar Ahady, the former Minister of Commerce and Industry and a former head of Afghanistan’s central bank, and Shah Mehrabi, a Maryland professor and former member of the central bank’s board, the people said.
Criticizing the US plan, Hasib Noori, an official with the Taliban-controlled bank, said in messages, “Da Afghanistan Bank considers any decision regarding the allocation, use, and transfer of the reserves in unrelated areas unacceptable and wants the matter reconsidered.”

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