TIRINKOT (Pajhwok): The Afghani Promotion Committee held its maiden meeting in central Uruzgan province on Saturday, giving traders and common people one month to shun using foreign currencies, particularly the Pakistani rupee, in domestic transactions.
The nine-member committee, formed under the leadership of the Uruzgan governor, comprises representatives of Da Afghanistan Bank, police headquarters, intelligence, the 4th brigade of the National Army, the vice and virtue department, municipality, revenue and the Department of Information and Culture.
Holding its first meeting, the committee asked shopkeepers and other people to transact only in the afghani and in this regard set a month-long deadline.
A member of the committee and Tirinkot Mayor Maulvi Muhammad Rafiq Hunar said Uruzgan did not share border with Pakistan, but all transactions in the province were done in the Pakistani currency since long.
He believed the people’s economic condition was worsening with the passage of time and were facing poverty because they transacted in the Pakistani rupee locally called “Kaldar”. The mayor said shopkeepers and traders used to buy goods in afghanis and sell them in rupees.
He said the Pakistani currency was losing its value and shopkeepers raised the prices of goods on their own to avoid losses.
Gul Mohammad, another member of the committee and a representative of the central bank, asked the people of Uruzgan to use the afghani in their daily deals and said the central bank could supply the local currency to the market as required.
Ending the meeting, the committee members gave one month to traders and people to stop using foreign currency in their daily transactions. They said legal action would be taken against the violators after the end of the deadline.
Mohammad Shafiq, a shopkeeper in Tirinkot city, told Pajhwok Afghan News that previous campaigns to prevent the use of the rupee had been ineffective.
He said the committee should seriously implement its campaign this time to prevent foreign currency transactions in the province.
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