Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani took less than one million dollars—contrary to millions of dollars as was alleged by many—when he fled the country last year in August after the Taliban stormed into the capital Kabul, says a report by the Special Inspector General For Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
 

“The allegations that former president Ashraf Ghani and his senior advisors fled Afghanistan abroad helicopters with millions in cash are unlikely to be true”, SIGAR, an oversight body set up by US Congress to audit the fund allocated for Afghanistan reconstruction, said in its latest report.

On 15 August 2021, Ghani and his senior advisors, including his national security advisor Hamidullah Mohib, left Kabul in three helicopters hours after the Taliban forces entered Kabul, leading to the fall of the US-backed democratic Afghan government. . 

The SIGAR report, compiled based on interviews of at least 30 former officials, including those close to Ghani, suggests a little over $500,000 million in cash on board the helicopters. Significantly, the fund that Ghani took away was not the government fund but was the leftover amount that the UAE government had provided to Ghani to support his 2019 presidential campaign.

“The hurried nature of their departure, the emphasis on passengers over cargo, the payload and performance limitations of the helicopters, and the consistent alignment in detailed accounts from witnesses on the ground and in the air all suggest that there was little more than $500,000 in cash on board the helicopters,” the report said.

However, the report added it is likely that significant amounts of US currency disappeared from Afghan government property in the chaos of the Taliban takeover—including $5 million taken from the presidential palace and tens of millions taken from the vault at the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the erstwhile Afghan intelligence agency.

In the days leading to the fall of the regime, the NDS, which was funding huge amounts to local militias and the tribal leaders during those days, had over $39 million in cash in its vault. However, the fund vanished just before the Taliban took control of its headquarters.

A former senior official at the NDS, who was replaced just weeks before the fall, confirmed that he had been receiving calls from high officials to take the money out as they said that everything will collapse ultimately.
 

 (SAM)