important guidelines for IEA

Answers 1. The most important steps to increase the control of the Islamic government are: a. Establishment of a mass based supply organization with local level links to control distribution of food and other essential supplies. b. Nationalization of foreign trade c. Institution of government control over inflow/outflow of foreign exchange. Dedollarization of the economy. d. Introduction of Islamic Dinar and nationalization of banks and all financial institutions. 2. The Taliban government has since 1996 been effectively managing the rural/tribal economy on a mass level. Basically we need to organize and regularize the existing wartime system by setting up a mass supply system stretching from the local level to the central government level. (Details provided in the “Developing A Planning System” document). The supply system will be effective because those implementing the decision of the government (at the local level) will participate in the day to day management of supplies. 3. We should withdraw (perhaps gradually) from the IMF, WTO etc. because: a. They are political agents of imperialist governments and will sabotage our economy. b. They will seek to integrate the Afghan economy into the global capitalist financial system thus making national self-sufficiency impossible. c. They will seek to establish a delivery system for direct contact with the masses bypassing the Islamic government with the specific intention of destroying the revolution and eroding Islamic values. 4. There are only two Islamic governments in the world – Afghanistan and Iran. Some efforts have been made in Iran to eliminate interest based financing (of which WGAE is not fully aware). We should look closely at the practice of Irani financing. The Tamveeli system is concerned to eliminate money as a commodity (which the Islamic banking does not do). It requires: a. The introduction of a non-interest based currency – the Islamic Dinar. b. Complete control of the Islamic government over money and credit creation (involving the nationalization of all financial institutions). c. Establishment of a system of control of distribution of money and credit by the Islamic government. d. Complete control of Islamic government over all flows of foreign exchange (Dollar, Pak rupee etc.) credit planning and the introduction of a managed fixed exchange rate. e. The non-existence of all primary and secondary money and capital market transactions. A complete Tamveeli system does not exist anywhere in the world therefore prima facie nothing can be said about its effectiveness. As Islamic revolutionaries our conception of “effectiveness” is different from that of the capitalists – we do not seek to create a capitalist economy in Afghanistan. Our economic policy should be judged to be effective:

a. If it leads to the promotion of Islamic virtues at the mass level – thus the Tamveeli system will do by eliminating riba, gharur and secondary market transaction b. If it leads to better utilization of the physical resources of the country. There is no reason why the Tamveeli system will fail to do this (only time will tell after we make this experiment). c. Corus of a riba/gharur based system is non-effective in the utilization of national physical resources. It will do so by facilitating the development of a capitalist economy and making national self-reliance impossible. The Afghan economy will be integrated with the imperialist financial system. Therefore we must take the risk of introducing the tamveeli system. This is necessary to safeguard the revolution. d. We must emphasize that introduction of Islamic banking/finance will seriously harm the revolution because Islamic finance is fully integrated in international riba/gharar based money and capital markets and have invented Sharia compliant service for treating money as a commodity. 5. We have no proof of Mr. james Brett’s Crime but this not the point. We argue for the rejection of the Plant for progress proposal not on the basis of Mr. Brett’s credentials but because the Plant plan seeks to directly organize the Afghan masses bypassing the Islamic government – which is undermining the revolution. The proposal seeks to use Afghan agricultural resources for funding food multinationals directly. We argue that Afghan participation in the global supply chain should be exclusively through the government. Accepting the Plant proposal will make the nationalization of foreign trade and the government centered foreign exchange impossible. It is a proposal for integrating the Afghan rural sector directly into the global capitalist imperialist economy bypassing Afghan government. The proposal should be immediately rejected forthwith. 6. The introduction of a baseless currency has only administrative cost -there are no other resource costs. It’s success depends upon : a. Development of a national capacity to print currency notes. While the capacity is being developed currency note printing should be transferred from Germany to Iran. Pakistan developed this capacity within few months of independence. b. Effective control of the distribution of currency notes through the branches of a nationalized Tamveeli Awaami Institution and substitution of existing Afghani by Islamic Dinar through this system. c. Correct estimation of the volume of Islamic Dinar to be issued on quarterly basis d. Establishment of mechanism for currency conversion of all foreign currencies ($, Rupee,) inflows into the economy in Islamic Dinar. e. Correct estimation of value of Islamic Dinar in Afghani and foreign currencies. f. The first steps for the issuance of Islamic Dinar must be the nationalization of the financial institutions and the establishment of state monopoly over foreign exchange transactions. The benefits of issuing a baseless currency are that it delinks the national Tamveeli system from global capitalist finance which is Riba and Gharur biased. It strengthens the control of the Islamic Government over the national economy and facilitates financial and economic planning.

We are currently in a situation where the USSR was in 1918-1927 when several versions of the New Rouble were issued – they were also effectively baseless. We suggest that our Russian speaking brothers look closely at the currency management experience of Russia during 1918-1927. Some attempt has made to develop an outline of currency management system (see attached WGAE paper in Urdu). More work can be done on this by WGAE provided that monetary data is provided. However, we stress that at this stage of the revolution the need is for learning by doing rather than academic studies. 7. a. b. c. The plan implementation scheme is as follows: A Council of Ministers is responsible for setting plan output targets. Under it there is a planning Commission which has offices at provincial, district and local levels. Initial output target set on the basis of estimation of supply and demand at sectoral and subsectoral are set by the central planning commission secretariat. d. They are sent to all provincial, district levels for revision. After revision at each level, they are sent back to the central planning secretariat which finalizes plan output targets. Finance is not a binding constraint if we conceive of planning as a physical process. On the basis of sectoral/sub-sectoral resource balances we may identify supply and demand requirements of specific feasible output targets. The creation of a balance among the Islamic Dinar and credit planning will enable us to finance the plan in a relatively non-inflationary manner. For this system to work two things are essential: a. the development of a realistic input-output matrix to approximately identify supply/demand balance at major sectoral levels b. Correct estimation of the volume and distribution of currency and credit to sustain an inflationary growth of the Afghan economy in accordance with the plan targets. Again, much can be learned in this regard from the Soviet Union experience during 1918-27. 8. We argue that the delinking of Afghani from foreign currencies is a priority and 12 months may be too short a period for total replacement of Afghani by Islamic Dinars. Islamic Dinars must be issued gradually but we must remain committed to the total substitution of Afghani by the Islamic Dinar, however long it takes. We suggest that a small batch of Islamic Dinar (say 15 percent of total money supply) should be issued by September 2022. 9. Only a minority of people actively supported the Taliban during Jihad – most people though sympathetic to the Taliban remained passive. Therefore, the masses can be affected by capitalist way of living. The primary capitalist values are Hirs (accumulation) and Hasad (competition). Hirs and hasad are promoted by the development of market society. A market is not a bazar. In an Islamic bazar there are strong community ties and Islamic values Sabr, Tawakkul, Ihsan and Infaq are practiced. On the other hand in a capitalist market there is no community consciousness and

every seller and buyer is solely self-interested seeking to maximize his greed thus hirs and hasad are promoted. The means for preventing the growth of hirs and hasad at the present moment in Afghanistan are as follows: A. Appointment of muhtasib in bazar to regulate transaction practices. B. Regulation and state control of prices to ensure elimination of monopolistic tendencies and practices. C. Establishment of an active Dawa Majlis at local, district, municipal, enterprise, provincial and central level which promotes the values of sabr, tawakul, infaq, and monitors the impact of economic policy on the spiritual and moral life of the masses. The Dawa Majlis should be part of the economic administration and should consist of Ulemas, Sufia, Taliban and tribal elders. 10. Our concept of decentralization is the establishment of a mass economic organization stretching from the central to the local level responsible for: a. Collection of statistics at the production/distribution level b. Modifying plan targets in light of local/physical realties c. Ensuring implementation of plan directions at point of production and distribution. d. Explaining and justifying government policy at community level e. Promoting Islamic consciousness – the realization at the mass level that Ma’ash is a means for achieving falah in Ma’ad. 11. The reason why we advocate cutting links with IMF, WTO, UN agencies etc. is that the policies they advocate necessarily seek to integrate Afghanistan into the global capitalist system. Integration into global capitalist order makes the development of a self-reliant national economy impossible and necessarily promotes capitalist values (hirs, israaf and hasad) at the mass level. We should avoid taking any policy advice from IMF, WTO, UN agencies etc. For example, we should see that the VAT proposal is a means for reducing the role of the government in price determination. We should not set a western VAT on all tradable but develop a price control mechanism where taxes are integrated into price structures that there are low taxes on priority sectors (grain, medicines, armaments) and high taxes on luxuries and imports.