Afghanistan’s state power company has appealed to a United Nations-led mission to give $90 million to settle unpaid bills to Central Asian suppliers before electricity gets cut off for the country given that the three-month deadline for payments has passed.
Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan from mid-August, electricity bills haven’t been paid to neighboring countries that supply about 78 per cent of its power needs. This poses another problem for a new government that is grappling with a cash crunch in the economy in part due to US and other allies freezing the country’s overseas reserves.
Afghanistan usually pays $20 million to $25 million a month in total to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Iran and now upaid bills stand at $62 million, Safiullah Ahmadzai, the acting CEO of Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat, said on Wednesday.
