FOOD-FOR-WORK, TALIBAN UNVEILS SCHEME TO TACKLE HUNGER AND UNEMPLOYMENT

Sun 24 October 2021:

The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has begun a hunger-relief scheme, delivering wheat to thousands of people in exchange for labor.

At a press conference in southern Kabul on Sunday, the Taliban’s main spokesperson said the scheme would be expanded out across Afghanistan’s major towns and cities, employing 40,000 men in the capital alone.

“This is an important step for fighting unemployment,” Zabihullah Mujahid said, adding the labourers must “work hard”.

The Taliban’s food-for-work scheme will not pay labourers, targeting those who are currently unemployed and most at risk of starvation during the winter.

Approximately 55,000 tons of wheat will be given throughout the country, including Herat, Jalalabad, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Pol-i-Khomri, during the two-month initiative.

Work for the labourers in Kabul will include digging water channels and catchment terraces for snow in the hills to combat drought.

At a ceremony in the capital’s rural Rish Khor region, Mujahid and other senior officials, including agriculture minister Abdul Rahman Rashid and Kabul mayor Hamdullah Nomani, cut a pink ribbon and dug a tiny trench to kick off the initiative.

Afghanistan — which is already suffering from poverty, drought, electricity blackouts and a failing economic system — is now facing the onset of what may be a harsh winter.

_____________________________________________________________________________

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent