Pension payments relief for Afghan retirees

AFTER a four-year suspension, the Taliban government has announced it would resume pension payments for Afghanistan's nearly 150 000 retired military and civil servants.

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They will be the last public sector workers to receive any payments, after the cash-strapped authorities announced an end to the public pension scheme last year.

“When you're jobless sitting at home and have nothing, you're worried about food,’ said 71-year-old Abdul Sabir outside the pension department in the capital Kabul.

He was among those scheduled to receive his pension again in a gradual roll-out across government institutions.

Retired public sector employees have for the past few years increasingly demonstrated outside government buildings, demanding payments that ended after the return of Taliban authorities in 2021.

“All the pending amounts will be distributed to the retirees,” pension fund director Mohammad Rahmani said this week.

Government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat told local media eventually the years of unpaid pensions would be disbursed.