Afghan Central Bank Chief Flees to U.S.
Afghanistan's central bank governor has resigned and fled to the United States, saying his life is in danger over a corruption probe targeting influential figures connected to the government.
President Hamid Karzai's government on Tuesday dismissed the claims of Abdul Qadir Fitrat, chairman of Da Afghanistan Bank, insisting his life was not under threat and calling him a "runaway governor".
"I announce my resignation from the position of governor of the central bank of Afghanistan immediately," Fitrat said in a statement issued as he visited the United States, where he reportedly has permanent residency.
"Unfortunately, central bank's independence on regulatory and supervisory matters has recently been undermined by the repeated interference of high-level political authorities," he said.
The governor has claimed his role in an investigation into the near-collapse last year of Kabul Bank, the war-torn country's largest private lender, had endangered his life.
"My life was completely in danger and this was particularly true after I spoke to the parliament and exposed some people who are responsible for the crisis of Kabul Bank," he was quoted as saying by the BBC.
In April, Fitrat named in parliament high-profile figures who were allegedly involved in corruption scandal amounting to nearly $1 billion at Kabul Bank, which handles the pay of thousands of Afghan civil servants.
The bank was founded in 2004 by Sherkhan Farnood, a leading international poker player. Its co-owners included Mahmood Karzai, a brother of President Hamid Karzai, and a brother of Vice President Mohammad Qasim Fahim.
The scandal has highlighted chaos and corruption in Afghanistan's financial system at a time when U.S.-led combat troops are looking to exit the country, a decade after ousting the fundamentalist Taliban regime.
Some foreign troop withdrawals are due to start next month, with 10,000 United States forces scheduled to leave by the end of this year.
President Karzai's spokesman Waheed Omer angrily dismissed Fitrat's claims.
"We don't think that's very valid. He never actually told anyone in the government that his life was in danger," Omer told Agence France Presse.
"This is basically an escape not a resignation... the formal procedures have not been adhered to. He's not a governor but a runaway governor."
Omer indicated that Fitrat may have been trying to escape from "legal implications" surrounding the Kabul Bank scandal, without giving any details.
And the spokesman insisted that Fitrat's departure was "not going to have a major impact" on Afghanistan's ability to resolve the Kabul Bank crisis.
The lender was taken over last year by Afghanistan's central bank after claims that executives granted themselves off-the-book loans worth a reported $900 million that were partly used to buy luxury properties in Dubai.
The International Monetary Fund wants the Karzai government to take steps to ensure a similar scandal does not happen again before it approves a new assistance program for the desperately poor country.
The impasse has already seen hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid money to Afghanistan being withheld this year.
There are serious tensions between the IMF and Kabul over the issue.
A week ago, Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal said the government was "running out of patience" and accused the IMF of "playing games" over the crisis at Kabul Bank.
"We take note of Governor Fitrat's decision to step down as central bank governor," IMF spokesman Raphael Anspach said, according to the Wall Street Journal.
"We look forward to continue discussing with his successor ways to improve the Afghan banking system in the period ahead."
Fitrat is reportedly holed up in a hotel in Washington's Virginia suburbs and refusing to return to Afghanistan.
"We do know that he is in Washington," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
"If there were to be a change of leadership at the Afghan central bank, we would continue to encourage that government to take all the necessary steps to reform and strengthen the financial sector," she said.
The Kabul Bank crisis was triggered last September and led to fears that the lender could collapse. A run on the bank was only halted after government assurances and injections of huge amounts of public money.
Fitrat said in April that only around $47 million in cash of the $900 million had been recouped so far.
Source: Agence France Presse
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