ISLAMABAD/KABUL: Taliban have asked top officials to sack their sons and other close relatives they have hired on government posts.
A decree issued by Taliban emir Hibatullah Akhundzada said that Taliban officials should replace their sons or other family members they have appointed to key government positions and refrain from giving jobs to relatives in the future.
The decree from the top Taliban leader comes after reports emerged that several Taliban officials had hired their sons and relatives in important key positions in various government departments, the BBC said.
Earlier, the Taliban dismissed several senior officials when they took power in 2021, while several others fled.
There had been allegations that inexperienced officials have been hired by the Taliban officials based on their personal connections.
The Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press said that the decree from Akhundzada followed allegations that several senior Taliban officials had appointed their sons to key roles within the interim set-up.
The decree was posted on the Taliban’s Office of Administrative Affairs’ Twitter page on Saturday.
Afghanistan is facing a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis since the Taliban regained control of the country in August 2021. Foreign military forces led by the US and NATO had been in the country for two decades before they withdrew after fighting a war that killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions more.
Since then, sanctions had been placed on the Taliban government and Afghan central bank’s overseas assets had been frozen with foreign funding suspended.
Afghanistan is said to be sitting on natural resources, including natural gas, copper and rare earths worth more than $1 trillion. The reserves remain untapped owing to decades of turmoil in the country.
