Finance minister of Afghanistan Khalid Payenda now is an Uber driver in Washington DC

According to The Washington Post, former Afghanistan finance minister Khalid Payenda is now driving an Uber in Washington DC to support his family after resigning days before Kabul fell to the Taliban. Payenda also teaches at Georgetown University as an adjunct professor.

Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister of the Afghan government, told the Washington Post that he is grateful for the positions he has found since they allow him to support his wife and four children.

As Khalid stated, “Right now, I don’t have any place,” he said. “I don’t belong here, and I don’t belong there. It’s a very empty feeling.”

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Payenda blames the Americans for the Taliban’s dominance of Afghanistan, according to The Washington Post. In August 2021, the US withdrew from Afghanistan after two decades of conflict. He also said that the US betrayed its commitment to democracy and human rights after making Afghanistan a main element of post-9/11 policies.

Payenda said, “Maybe there were good intentions initially but the United States probably didn’t mean this.”