KABUL, Dec 24: Afghanistan’s new ministers, charged with rebuilding a nation shattered by 23 years of war, were slow off the mark on Monday, with many failing to turn up at their ministries as scheduled.

The 30-member interim cabinet was sworn in on Saturday and held its first meeting on Sunday, when its leader Hamid Karzai said the priorities were reconstruction, the economy and bringing “peace and stability”.

On Monday the members of the power-sharing cabinet were to visit their ministries and meet staff, accompanied by any acting ministers who were installed by the Northern Alliance.

However, a survey of three different ministries — Information and Culture; Martyrs and Disabled; and Return of Refugees — showed officials still waiting patiently to catch sight of their new bosses.

The Martyrs and Disabled Ministry was in particularly poor shape, with parts of the buildings destroyed and rooms almost bare.

Unlike the Information and Culture Ministry where the new “start-up kit” provided by foreign donors — desk, chair, computer and telephone — had arrived, over at Martyrs and Disabled only a sofa was to be seen in the minister’s large office.

Ministry official Abdul Ghoori said he had yet to meet minister Abdullah Wardak, while Information and Culture officials said their minister, Raheen Makhdoom, was only due to arrive on Tuesday.

FINANCE MINISTER: The foreign reserves are missing, the civil service hasn’t been paid and the finance minister isn’t quite sure yet how to work the office phones.

But new Afghan Finance Minister Hedayat Amin Arsala, who returned from more than six years in exile just in time to be sworn in two days ago, has big plans, including calming the volatile afghani and reducing cash in circulation.

Like many ministers in the new interim cabinet, he showed up for work for the first time on Monday at a ministry with freezing hallways, dirty carpets and countless milling strangers.

“There appear to be some phones,” he said in a conference room heated by a wood stove with a makeshift chimney pipe leading to a hole in the window.

He picked up a receiver on a table. “I don’t know how it works. I haven’t called anyone yet.”

A United Nations instant office supply start-up kit was in his office when he arrived, which was “good for my secretary,” he said.—afp/ Reuters