Based on the decree issued by the Taliban supreme leader, 75 mosques are to be built on the highways of Afghanistan, including six mosques on the Kabul-Kandahar highway and eight more mosques on the Kandahar-Herat route.
The construction of these mosques has been entrusted to the Ministry of Public Works of the Taliban — a ministry whose main responsibility is building roads and bridges, not mosques.
It seems that the Taliban, with the new function it has defined for the Ministry of Public Works, is directing the process and the amount of budget allocation for national programs in a direction that has never been seen before.
The decree comes at a time when the Afghans have been facing an unprecedented economic crisis as over 23 million out of nearly 40 million population is in urgent need of assistance.
However, the Ministry has announced the cost of building eight mosques along the Kandahar-Herat highway of more than 259,895,000 Afghani currency (3,812,307 US Dollars). If we calculate the average cost of building these mosques, the cost of building each mosque will be more than 32,486,000 Afghanis (471,018.66 US Dollars). If 75 mosques are built, then two billion, 436 million and 515 thousand Afghanis will be the cost of these mosques.
This is part of the huge budget that has been or will be spent on building mosques or religious schools in these three years. The Ministry of Hajj of the Taliban also plays a role in the construction of mosques. Similarly, mosques have been built with the money of private and foreign organizations and even on the people’s expenses.
Road reconstruction and reduction of horrific deaths
The Ministry of Public Works spends its budget on building mosques along highways, while the country’s public facilities, including roads, are in poor condition and are deadly for citizens.
At the same time, the ministry has imposed a toll on highways for what it calls road reconstruction, and this fee is already being collected from citizens. Taliban also said that the second line of Kabul-Jalalabad highway is going to be built with the cost of toll. Now, instead of building mosques on the side of the roads, shouldn’t the roads themselves be built first?
The Ministry of Public Works says it will rebuild the Kabul-Kandahar highway. The cost of its renovation and development has not been announced; However, the author’s investigation shows that the cost of rebuilding only one 80-kilometer section of the Kabul-Kandahar highway is 400 million Afghanis.
If we consider the length of the Kabul-Kandahar highway to be 480 km, it will be six 80 km sections. In this case, the reconstruction of all six sections, that is, the entire Kabul-Kandahar highway, will cost two billion and 400 million Afghanis. According to this calculation, with the money spent on the construction of mosques on the highway, the entire Kabul-Kandahar highway can be reconstructed, and another 36 million and 515 thousand Afghanis will remain.
Production of needed goods – support to the poor community
If the money spent on building mosques is to be invested in the field of industry, what can be done and what will be achieved?
The Office of the Economic Deputy of the Taliban Prime Minister had said that a camp manufacturing factory has recently been established with an investment of 930 million Afghanis. It is said that 900 people have been provided with work opportunities in this factory. Well, now with two billion and 436 million Afghanis, two such factories can be established and provide jobs for more than 1,800 people.
If two billion and 436 million Afghanis are to be distributed among needy families and 30,000 Afghanis are considered for each family, then 81,200 families will benefit from cash assistance. 30,000 Afghani is the minimum three-month needs for a small family.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in 2024, more than 23 million people in Afghanistan will need assistance.
In its recent report, OCHA said that only $961.7 million of the requested budget of $3.06 billion for Afghanistan in 2024 has been provided until mid-October, and aid organizations are severely short of funds. According to OCHA, Afghanistan has received about $6.7 billion in humanitarian aid since the Taliban took office on August 15, 2021. Nearly 3.3 billion dollars of aid has been received in 2022 alone.
According to the report of the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), only the United States provided $3.33 billion in humanitarian and development aid to Afghanistan after the Taliban took over.
