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Six months after Taliban takeover, Afghanistan’s last finance minister, Khalid Payenda now driving an Uber in US

“If I complete 50 trips in the next two days, I receive a $95 bonus,” the 40-year-old rejoiced, from behind the wheel of a Honda Accord.

Khalid Payenda, once Afghanistan’s finance minister and cofounder of Afghanistan’s first private university, is now driving Uber in Washington DC to support his family. 

Apart from this, he is working as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University where he gets $2,000 per semester.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Khalid expressed his gratitude, adding that he is grateful for the gigs that he has found as it helps him to provide for his family of wife and four children. 

“Right now, I don’t have any place,” he said. “I don’t belong here, and I don’t belong there. It’s a very empty feeling,” Payenda said.

In August 2021, the Taliban took over Afghanistan, days after US announced withdrawal of its troops from the country. Afghanistan is now facing a humanitarian and financial capital 

Holding the US government responsible for Afghanistan’s crises, Khalid said that the withdrawal of US troops allowed the Taliban to take over and that the US had betrayed its commitment to democracy and human rights after making Afghanistan a centrepiece of post-9/11 policy.

“Maybe there were good intentions initially but the United States probably didn’t mean this,” Payenda added. 

Expressing his dismay, Payenda, in a text message to a World Bank official in Kabul, said,“We had 20 years and the whole world’s support to build a system that would work for the people. All we built was a house of cards that came down crashing this fast. A house of cards built on the foundation of corruption.” 

Payenda, the last Finance Minister of Afghanistan, resigned his post days before the Taliban seized the capital city and is now working in the US to make his ends meet. 

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