Cpharm Australia says no deal with Taliban

KABUL (Pajhwok): Australian medical consulting firm Cpharm has denied signing a deal with Taliban officials for investment in the establishment of a hashish-processing plant in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, Interior Ministry spokesperson Qari Saeed Khosti told Pajhwok Afghan News Cpharm would invest $450 million in setting up the hashish-processing plant in Afghanistan.

Representatives of the Australia-based firm met counternarcotic officials at the Ministry of Interior on the issue, he added.

Talks with the company on the establishment of the plant had concluded and practical work on the project would get under way soon, he added.

However, the Australian firm told Reuters it had never talked to the Taliban and had no dealings overseas or involving cannabis.

Cpharm Australia’s chief financial officer Tony Gabites told the news outlet: “We’re just trying to work out what we’re going to do to stop it.”

He added: “We’ve had probably 40 or 50 calls today. It’s just out of control and it’s just all lies, media guys … not doing any due diligence on what they want to publish.”

He believed the reports were based on a tweet from a Taliban-linked account that named a company called Cpharm, referring to another organisation elsewhere in the world with a similar name.

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