The Taliban has allegedly collected about $50 million in revenue from issuing 700,000 passports to Afghans fleeing the nation.
In addition to that, the Taliban also earned another million USD from visa charges paid by the 4,100 overseas visitors who have arrived in Afghanistan in the past 12 months.
"We are issuing up to 4,000 passports daily and we aim to increase the number to 10,000," Shirshah Quraishi, who is the deputy director of Afghanistan's passport department, told reporters in Kabul.
Although the income from passport and visa services has exceeded $50 million, it is still a fraction of Afghanistan's annual budget for 2022, which has been pegged at $2 billion.
An estimated 500,000 Afghans have fled Afghanistan since the Taliban took power in Kabul, according to the UN refugee agency.
Afghanistan's economy is in dire need of fresh funds; foreign non-humanitarian assistance has completely stopped since the Taliban's rise to power. As much as 70 percent of the government budget was funded by foreign donors during the erstwhile regime of President Ashraf Ghani.
The former government received $4.2 billion from foreign countries in development assistance in 2020.
*under UN sanctions over terrorist activities