{"id":1922,"date":"2017-01-02T21:42:22","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T21:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taand.com\/en\/?p=1922"},"modified":"2017-01-02T21:42:22","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T21:42:22","slug":"afghan-minister-suspended-over-tax-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taand.net\/en\/?p=1922","title":{"rendered":"Afghan minister suspended over tax probe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">President Ashraf Ghani suspended minister of telecommunications and information technology while he is investigated over a levy on mobile telephone charges, officials said on Monday (Jan 2).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\nThe removal of Communications Minister Abdul Razaq Wahidi adds to a lingering political crisis in Afghanistan, heightened in November when parliament passed no-confidence votes against a number of ministers over poor performance and budgetary issues.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\nYasin Sameem, a spokesman for the communications ministry, said the decision to suspend Wahidi was taken after an audit into the collection of a 10% tax on mobile phone topups imposed in 2015.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\nHe said the president\u2019s office, which has declared the fight against graft as a top priority, felt the ministry had not co-operated sufficiently with an investigation into alleged corruption surrounding the levy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n\u201cWe are committed to accountability and the minister will wait for the findings of the investigation,\u201d Sameem said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\nThe mobile phone levy, which has raised millions of dollars for government coffers, was imposed as part of efforts to raise domestic tax revenue to make up for a gradual reduction in international donor aid in coming years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\nWhile Wahidi\u2019s suspension will not immediately affect the day-to-day functioning of the government, it highlights the difficulties Ghani has had in pushing through major reforms of the economy while fighting the Taliban insurgency.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\nGhani ordered ministers removed by parliament to remain in their posts until a Supreme Court ruling on the affair but the standoff underlined the weakness of the national unity government formed after a disputed election in 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Ashraf Ghani suspended minister of telecommunications and information technology while he is investigated over a levy on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[318],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - 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