An American-based university professor and former merchant banker on Sunday was appointed to probably the toughest finance job in the world -- governor of the Afghan Central Bank.
Dr Anwar Ahady, 51, at present a professor of Politics and International Relations at Rhode Island's Providence College, said he accepted the position without any misgivings as a patriotic gesture to his Afghan homeland.
But he faces a huge challenge in a country where the banking system has not changed since the 1940s, economic statistics -- the life-blood of any central banker -- are non-existent and there are a number of currencies in circulation printed by rival warlords.
Undeterred, he joins a growing list of Afghans long based abroad, particularly in the US, returning home to key posts.
Dr Ahady, who worked for the now defunct Continental Bank of Chicago in its lending department in the 1980s, received his high school education in Kabul before embarking on an education that took him from the American University in Beirut to North Western University outside Chicago where he also earned an MBA.
Writing his thesis on Gulf Security and the impact of oil wealth on the societies of Middle East producers, Dr Ahady also holds a PhD in political science.
Dr Ahady is from an upper middle-class Kabul family -- his father was a Supreme Court judge -- and initially turned down the post of Irrigation Minister in interim leader Hamid Karzai's government because he did not think his skills suited the job.
A Pashtun, like Karzai, he was involved in the UN-sponsored Bonn Conference last December that installed the present government.
"I am a patriot and still have an Afghan passport so I had no doubts about taking this post," he said.
A fluent English speaker and looking every inch an immaculately dressed Western banker, Dr Ahady said he had taken a two-year leave of absence from Providence College where he has taught since 1994.
Dr Ahady said getting the printing of Afghanistan's many currencies under control was his most pressing and sensitive task.
"I hope by the end of the year we can have a single currency," he said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS