The Islamic Emirate responded to SIGAR’s report claiming that “the Taliban indirectly benefit from U.S.-funded education assistance” by stating that the organization’s findings are wildly inaccurate.
The Deputy Spokesman of the Islamic Emirate, Bilal Karimi, said that the current government regulates all issues based on the interests of the country.
“This administration’s statements about the issues of Afghanistan are far from truth. The Islamic Emirate regulates all the issues and affairs and everything that is going on in Afghanistan according to the principles and interests of its country,” Karimi noted.
This comes as the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR), said in its recent report that the Islamic Emirate indirectly benefits from US-funded education assistance.
“The Taliban benefit from U.S. education funding through the establishment of fraudulent NGOs to receive donor assistance, and by infiltrating and extorting existing Afghan NGOs delivering educational assistance,” the report reads.
According to SIGAR’s report, “Even boys’ secondary school attendance decreased by more than 10 percent in eight provinces. In addition, a chancellor of one private university told SIGAR that immediately following August 2021, the university lost 50 percent of its enrolled students and that all woman’s educational programs at the university.”
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR) said the current Afghan government policies have also “limited students’ access to education because restrictions on women teachers have caused staffing shortages.”
Meanwhile, some economists gave various views regarding SIGAR’s report.
“I think that, from the start, America and its allies have known that the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan has access to the thirty to forty million dollars that are sent there every week in addition to other forms of aid,” said Seiyar Qureshi, an economist.
Previously, the UN Security Council said in a report that 56 humanitarian aid programs in Afghanistan have been stopped due to the intervention of the Islamic Emirate.
However, the Islamic Emirate has said that they only provide security for relief organizations and do not interfere in the internal affairs of the organizations.
