Cash-strapped government puts new projects on hold

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) has informed all government departments they need to cut back on budget spend, including that on planned development projects.

In an official notice to all government institutions, MoF has ordered them to stop projects where contracts have recently been signed, and which employ contract workers.

All planned development projects have also been put on hold.

The MoF said that due to the increase in spend for the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), the increase in health spend and a drop in government income, all government departments need to cut expenditure.

“After the assessment of the development and general budgets by the cabinet, changes have been brought to the ministries and all government budgets because of the increase in ANDSF and health spending. Contracts from the… budget should be halted or suspended,” read the notice.

The MoF said that the government has lost $33 million in customs revenue since the Taliban seized five border crossings in the past month, amid rising violence in the country.

“Sher Khan port in Kunduz, Spin Boldak in Kandahar, Islam Qala in Herat, Abu Nasr Farahi in Farah and Torghundi in Herat have been captured by Taliban in the past month,“said Rafi Tabi, spokesman for the MoF.

Analysts have said the government should consider other steps to cut back on budget spend.

“In this situation, we can’t blame government, but it (government) should consider other options to prevent confusing the public,” said Sayed Massoud, a university lecturer.

This comes after the projected revenue generation for Afghanistan was expected to be 216 billion AFN ($2.7 billion) for the current solar year.

The total 452.6 billion AFN budget for this year did however carry a 37 billion AFN deficit – which government was to provide 20 billion AFN from internal resources and 17 billion AFN was pledged by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to make up the difference.