January 28, 2002	Monday	Ziqa’ad 13, 1422

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KABUL, Jan 27: Helping Afghanistan restart its comatose economy is the International Monetary Fund’s biggest challenge ever, the head of an IMF assessment team which arrived in Kabul on Sunday said.

“The challenge will be to put the country together,” Paul Chabrier, leader of an eight-member IMF delegation and 12-member World Bank team told newsmen.

The delegation is due to spend four days in Afghanistan, meeting mainly with the governor of the Central Bank, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, and the ministers of finance, commerce and planning, Chabrier said.

The discussions would focus on monetary management and the issuing of currency; the war-ravaged country’s fiscal situation; the creation of a statistical base; and assessing Afghanistan’s need for technical help.

“We are looking at a putting together a very efficient mini-budget for the remainder of this year, and next year’s budget, and at the same time looking at what are the proper procedures to monitor expenditure,” Chabrier said.

Potential avenues of revenue generation would also be discussed, including the levying of a “very efficient, simple tax.”

The creation of a statistical base was necessary for decisions to be taken on the basis of facts rather than speculation.

Chabrier said Afghanistan had competent fiscal leaders “but while it is important to have a few people at the top who are competent and want to get things moving, you need also to build an efficient administration. It’s no good sitting all alone at the top.”

The $4.5bn pledged for the reconstruction of Afghanistan at last week’s donors’ conference in Tokyo, Chabrier said, ought to be sufficient to cover a budget for the country for 2002 without having the extended lines of credit to Kabul.—AFP