Afghanistan’s last finance minister now Uber driver in Washington – The Peninsula

Afghanistan’s last finance minister now Uber driver in Washington – The Peninsula

WOODBRIDGE, Virginia: Until last summer, Khalid Payenda was Afghanistan's finance minister, overseeing a $6 billion budget - the lifeblood of a government fighting for its survival in a war that had long been at the center of US foreign policy.

Now, seven months after Kabul had fallen to the Taliban, he was at the wheel of his Honda Accord, headed north on I-95 from his home in Woodbridge, Virginia, toward Washington, DC. Payenda swiped at his phone and opened the Uber app, which offered his "quest" for the weekend. For now, his success was measured in hundreds of dollars rather than billions.

"If I complete 50 trips in the next two days, I receive a $95 bonus," he said as he navigated the light Friday-night traffic.

The job was his way of supporting his wife and four children after he burned through his family's savings from Afghanistan. "I feel incredibly grateful for it," said the 40-year-old. "It means I don't have to be desperate." It was also a temporary reprieve from obsessing over the ongoing tragedy in his country, which was suffering through a catastrophic drought, a pandemic, international sanctions, a collapsed economy, a famine and the resurgence of Taliban rule.

Senior US officials