A first person account from Kabul | Taliban not in a position to control situation as they simply don’t have any idea about how to run the system

General stress level of people is very high amid joblessness, lack of money and violence

We can literally feel that there is something wrong with our country as soon as we step on to the street. Kabul is a city of three million people and usually the streets are crowded with private vehicles and noisy buses. But nowadays we find there is a clear drop in the number of vehicles on the streets. It’s quite obvious that people have no money in hand and therefore are choosing to spend time at home or are thinking of saving their last few Afghanis (Afghan currency).

The only place we find large crowds are the banks where people are waiting in long queues for withdrawals. But strangely we can’t withdraw our own money. Withdrawal limit is fixed at $200 per week and therefore residents are quite worried as prices are shooting up daily and that kind of money is totally insufficient for maintaining a family. Bank employees are also under tremendous pressure and it is visible in their rude behaviour. Earlier, banks here used to have old and torn notes but now we find banks have fresh currency notes. These new currency notes make us suspect that our banks are dipping into their reserves to sustain their business.