IslamicFinance.de

For sale: One bank with 114 branches in war-torn country; defrauded out of almost all its money; occasional target of terrorists. Ready to bid? That’s what Ashraf Ghani, president of Afghanistan, is hoping. He’s seeking a buyer for Kabul Bank, once the country’s largest. The government took it over in 2010 after its owners were accused of embezzling $825 million. The privatization is a test for Ghani, who wants to show the foreign donors who provide most of his budget that he’s committed to fighting corruption. Mohammad Aqa Kohistani, director general of Afghanistan’s Treasury Department, said he has received four expressions of interest since starting the sales process in October, including three from foreign firms. He wouldn’t identify them.

Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan's new president has re-opened an inquiry about the theft of almost $1bn from the Kabul Bank, which had cause much turmoil and is said to be one of the largest banking failures in the word. Thereby he fulfils his campaign promise to fighting corruption as a priority and to combatting corruption comprehensively.
The bank's founder Sher Khan Fernod and the former chief executive, Haji Khalil Ferozi, were jailed for five years for taking $810m of the $935m.

On the verge of collapse, Kabul Bank operates in a financial system we would barely recognise. SHANE Warne's post-cricket pursuits and the murky nightmare that is Afghanistan would not appear to be obviously connected. It's a mess, not least because Kabul Bank is the vehicle used to pay Afghan government salaries, mostly the military and police, the very same - and sometimes mutinous - security forces that the US, Australia and other members of the Western alliance trying to keep Afghanistan safe from extremists say they will, eventually, hand their duties to. The head of the country's central bank, a close associate of the ruling Karzai clique, unconvincingly says everything is fine at Kabul Bank and blames the media. Before returning to Kabul to again run the central bank (the Taliban interrupted his first stint in 1996), this particular governor sold carpets in the US.