Afghanistan's interim government desperate for cash and quickly

KABUL, Afghanistan - There is no money in the bank and no money to pay salaries. Afghanistan&#39;s interim administration is desperate, the United Nations said on Tuesday. <br> <br> Without a quick injection of funds, the very existence of the struggling administration is threatened, said Ahmed Fawzi, the spokesman for U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. <br> <br> The new government owes $70 million to 235,000 civil servants who haven&#39;t received salaries in at least eight months, he said. <br> <br> &#34;If this administration is going to have any credibility with the people of Afghanistan it will have to pay the salaries,&#34; Fawzi said. &#34;We need $70 million to keep this administration running ... to get the country going.&#34; <br> <br> The United Nations has issued an emergency appeal for $100 million but so far has received only $7 million. <br> <br> Since the collapse of the Taliban on Nov. 13 and the installation of the interim administration on Dec. 22, the international community has been quick and generous with pledges and an outpouring of good will. <br> <br> But Fawzi said what&#39;s needed is cash. <br> <br> &#34;The story of the day is cash,&#34; he told reporters at a U.N. briefing at the Intercontinental Hotel in the Afghan capital, Kabul. <br> <br> Reconstruction of Afghanistan will cost about $15 billion over the next 10 years, according to a preliminary assessment issued Tuesday by the U.N. Development Program, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. <br> <br> The report was issued ahead of next week&#39;s donors conference in Tokyo. The meeting aims to secure the funds to provide a new start for the country following two decades of war. <br> <br> Fawzi said the needs of Afghanistan are unprecedented. <br> <br> &#34;The infrastructure is totally destroyed. We are starting from zero,&#34; he said. &#34;This is like no other operation we have faced before.&#34; <br> <br> He said the new administration headed by Pashtun tribal leader Hamid Karzai needs everything from paperclips to cars and computers. <br> <br> The United Nations initially provided each minister with what it called a &#34;start-up&#34; package that included a car, a computer, a desk and office supplies. <br> <br> But to get the government up and running as a working administration, Fawzi said much more is needed. Even the glass in the windows of government offices is missing -- and the doors from their frames. <br> <br> &#34;You name it, they need it,&#34; Fawzi said. <br> <br> Originally the United nations had appealed for $20 million in so-called &#34;start-up&#34; money for the new administration, only to discover it needed $100 million. <br> <br> Fawzi said there were two reasons for the revised estimate: A dramatic strengthening of Afghanistan&#39;s currency since the Taliban left the Afghan capital on Nov. 13, from 45,000 to 25,000 afghanis to the dollar; and the discovery that the Central Bank was nearly empty. <br> <br> What little there was -- the equivalent of $7 million in dollars, Pakistani rupees and Afghan rupees -- was stolen by the departing Taliban. <br> <br> &#34;We thought there might have been some money in the bank,&#34; Fawzi said. <br> <br> <br>

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