Afghanistan’s Last Finance Minister Khalid Payenda Now Drives Uber in Washington DC

Former Afghanistan finance minister Khalid Payenda, who resigned from his post days before Kabul fell to the Taliban, is now driving an Uber in Washington DC to support his family, according to a report by The Washington Post. Payenda also works as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Ashraf Ghani government’s last finance minister said he is grateful for the gigs that he has found as it helps him to provide for his family of wife and four children.

“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,” Khalid said.

Khalid Payenda, who has joined the gig economy, said the work had made a huge difference in his life: “I feel incredibly grateful for it. It means I don’t have to be desperate.” Payenda told The Washington Post that he holds the Americans responsible for the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. After two decades of conflict, the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021.

Payenda told the Post he believed Afghans “didn’t have the collective will to reform, to be serious”. But he also said the US betrayed its commitment to democracy and human rights after making Afghanistan a centerpiece of post-9/11 policy.

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