Washington: Afghanistan's former finance minister Khalid Payenda, who once presented a 6 billion dollar budget for his country before the Taliban invasion is now an Uber driver in Washington DC to support his family.

Payenda is earning a little over 150 dollars for six hours of work but not counting his daily trips. After the Taliban took over, Afghanistan is facing an acute financial and humanitarian crisis with many countries around the world hesitant to recognize the Taliban regime. In 2021 August, the Taliban is have overthrown the US-backed regime in Afghanistan.

Payenda had resigned as the Finance Minister of the country a week before the Taliban took control of the capital city due to straining relations with Prime Minister Ashraf Ghani.

He tweeted back on August 10 saying “Today I stepped down as the Acting Minister of Finance. Leading the ministry of finance was the greatest honour of my life but it was time to step down to attend to personal priorities.” He left Afghanistan due to his fear of being arrested by the government and joined his family in the United States of America.

Hi moving to the US had been “quite an adjustment”, but was grateful to be able to support his family in any way he could. He also said he blames the United States of America for Afghanistan's current situation, as the withdrawal of troops had allowed the Taliban to take over, Payenda told The Washington Post.

The World Bank Official in Kabul sent a text message just hours before the Taliban took over Kabul city “We had 20 years and the whole world's support to build a system that would work for the people…All we built was a house of cards that came down crashing this fast. A house of cards built on the foundation of corruption,” he said as quoted by The Washington Post.