Afghan frozen assets make $155m profit in Switzerland

KABUL (Pajhwok): The board of a Switzerland-based trust fund says the previously frozen Afghanistan central bank’s assets of 3.5 billion US dollars have made a profit of about $150 million.

The US government froze $9.5 billion in assets of Afghanistan after the fall of the previous Afghan administration.

The US Statement Department last year announced moving $3.5bn of the frozen money into a new Swiss-based trust fund to be used “for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan.

The fund’s board also comprises US ambassador to Switzerland Scott Miller, Alexander Baumann, former chief of the bank, Anwar Ahadi, a former Afghan central bank chief and finance minister and Shah Mehrabi, a US academic who remains on the DAB Supreme Council.

Anwar Ahadi told BBC Pashto that Afghanistan’s assets of $3.5billion had made a profit of about $155 million in the past year.

He said: “Since the money was moved to the fund it has made a profit of about $155m, but this profit has been increasing every month.”

He added the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) based in Switzerland where Afghan assets are maintained is currently paying five percent profit per year, but estimated that this level profit may increase even more in the future.

The Afghanistan assets have not been spent yet, Ahadi said.

The US president Joe Biden issued as executive order to distribute the frozen Afghanistan assets.

US president Joe Biden said he wanted to release three and a half billion dollars from the frozen money to save the Afghans from hunger and would like to give 3.5 billion dollars from the money to the families of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

But some of kin of the victims of the September 11 attacks in a letter told Biden that the money was the right of the Afghans and he should not give it to them.

The caretaker government of Afghanistan has not yet said anything about this, but it emphasized last year that all the frozen assets of Afghanistan should be handed over to DAB.

kk/ma