Afghans pin hopes on a new economy

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Listen long enough on the streets of this dusty, bustling city and the whir of generators, the cry of hawkers, and the jingle of cell phones blend together into one constant hum. It's the sound of Afghans trying to make money.

The swirl of activity starts before dawn and lasts until dusk, interrupted only by the blast from an occasional suicide bombing.

Five and a half years after the US-led war toppled the Taliban government, and two years after historic parliamentary elections, the sense of euphoria here has worn off, replaced by the daily struggle to make ends meet and the search for the ever-elusive better life. As a competitive economy awakens in one of the world's poorest countries, the residents of Kabul are jockeying to get ahead in a city flush with cash from US soldiers, foreign aid workers, new investors, parliamentarians, and drug traffickers.

Some have already made fortunes catering to the emerging desires of this nation of 31 million people. Ehsanullah Bayat, a US-trained Afghan engineer, is one of the nation's richest men after starting the first cellphone company here in 2001, and a radio and television station. The inventors of Super Cola, a local soda, hold their own here against Coke.

But most Afghans are trying to climb a far more modest ladder of success.

"For those people who have a job, like a shop, or who have a small amount of capital, things are good and getting better," said Mohammad Nadir, who sells home made yogurt and other groceries at a shop his father opened the day he was born, 26 years ago. "But the poor stay poor. The government is not able to help them."

Costs have skyrocketed, Nadir said. During the Taliban years, his family paid $5 in monthly rent for the shop. Now they pay $200. That leaves about $500 per month in profit.

"Good money," he said. But he'd like to make more.

Kabul is teeming with people who are desperately trying to earn more, no matter what their current salary is. The crowd of unemployed graduates from University of Kabul clamor for jobs in the civil service, civil servants seek higher-paying work with the foreign non governmental organizations, while many employees at those organizations have their eyes on better-paid positions with the United Nations.

Ashraf Ghani, who was finance minister from 2002 to 2004, said the arrival of foreign aid organizations had spurred an unhealthy hunger for higher pay.

"People in the end of 2001 were willing to work for $50 per month and put in 16 hours a day because they believed in the country," Ghani said. Now, he says, few qualified people are willing to work for what the government is offering.

Raising wages for government workers has become a favorite topic in Parliament, where members recently rejected President Hamid Karzai's proposed budget because members said not enough money was being spent on salaries in remote provinces. A commission has been formed that hopes to increase the pay of Afghanistan's 300,000 civil servants, about 80,000 of whom are low-level workers such as cooks and drivers who earn less than $30 per month.

The newly minted Afghan National Army has also sought to increase wages for new recruits from $70 to about $100 per month. Some analysts see the effort as an attempt to compete with the Taliban, which is believed to be offering twice as much to its recruits.

Even the Afghan government is jockeying for more direct international assistance from donors, who currently send the lion's share of foreign assistance through aid organizations, partly out of fear of high-level corruption.

Unlike Britain, which has begun to give most of its assistance directly to the Afghan government, the United States continues to spend its aid on hiring US contractors who provide technical assistance to Afghanistan's government and army, and who build roads, schools, and other infrastructure. State Department officials say the US government has spent more than $2.5 billion annually in aid to Afghanistan, making it the largest donor.

Everywhere in the capital, people talk of money. They routinely query one another about their salaries. The cost of land seems to be on the tip of every businessman's tongue.

Bank accounts have become fashionable. In the center of town, large crowds form outside Aziz Bank, where the walls are lined with the names of new customers who won a $100 lottery prize, a new concept in post-Taliban Afghanistan.

There is also talk about what money can buy nowadays: a driver's license without an examination; release from jail without a trial; flattering coverage on state-run television.

According to a study released last month by Integrity Watch Afghanistan, a government watch dog group, most Afghans believe that government corruption is widespread. Half of the 1,250 Afghans who were polled reported paying a bribe last year, according to the study.

That is the system that Abdul Hamid, a 70-year-old former government worker, describes from his perch on the bench at his friend's shop in Kabul's Shar-e-Naw neighborhood. If only he had $2,000 or $3,000, he declared, he would buy his wife a promotion at the Ministry of Information and Culture.

"She now works in the lowest rank, because we don't have any money for bribes and we don't know anyone at the top," he said.

No matter that $3,000 is far more than she could earn in a year at the new post, he said. But once she got the appointment she would recoup her investment by collecting bribes herself.

Even some US soldiers appear to be participating in the illegal underground economy. Goods from Bagram Air Base easily find their way into the open market, although it's against military regulations.

Army-issued ready-made meals, stamped "US government property -- commercial resale is unlawful," can be bought for about 20 cents apiece in the "George Bush market" in Kabul. There, from a few dozen dusty stalls, military- issued grape jelly and powdered mashed potatoes along with huge boxes of Pop-Tarts, Uncle Ben's Rice, and Axe deodorant for men are sold.

"We buy it from the soldiers," explained a young shopkeeper who displayed a Yamaha keyboard and a row of flashlights.

A few shops away, bulk boxes of blue Gatorade are still marked with a sticker signifying that they were brought into the country, tax-free, by the Army and Air Force Exchange Services, where only military and their families are allowed to shop.

But one thing that money can't buy these days in Afghanistan is security. Although the United States has spent more than $3.3 billion on building a new Afghan army, which now has about 35,000 trained troops, members of the Taliban walk the streets openly in four provinces. Resurgent Taliban fighters recently executed a female prison warden and three men accused of being foreign spies.

Suicide bombings, virtually unknown here before 2003, have now become commonplace. About 130 such bombs exploded last year across the country, contributing to a growing worry that Afghanistan's economic prospects could wither away if instability spreads.

Last spring, hundreds of anti-American rioters poured into the streets of Kabul after a US military vehicle accident, forcing many aid organizations to draw up emergency evacuation plans for the first time.

Now the mansions where the groups are housed sit quietly behind glittering razor wire, with sandbags around the windows and men in camouflage pacing with AK-47s. The tight security is a reminder of the tinderbox of resentment that lies just below the surface of Afghans' daily hunt for better jobs, more business, and greater financial success.

That hunt came to a stunned halt three times in the past two weeks, when suicide bombers struck on streets crowded with shops that sell everything from bread to bicycle tires. After a police commander was targeted in one bombing last week , police officers forced the row of shops across the street to shut down.

But one 19-year-old Afghan was back in business within two hours selling cookies, cigarettes, vegetable oil, and other items.

"It's the only way for me to make a living," he said.