[TOLONEWS] Najibullah Haqqani, the acting Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology, urged the world to abandon 'hostile' decisions and engage with the Islamic Emirate.
Haqqani, in a special interview with TOLOnews, asserted that the Islamic Emirate will never succumb to non-Islamic and non-Shariah compliant demands for the sake of interaction with the world.
He stated, "Abandon hostile decisions, grasp the realities, and start your interactions with the Islamic Emirate. Never entertain the thought that the Islamic Emirate would accept demands that contradict Shariah and are against the national interests of the Afghan people."
In another part of his address, Haqqani provided statistics showing that 61% of the country's citizens have access to telecommunications services; however, he described this number as an initial figure.
Haqqani said that currently more than 18,000 telecommunications sites are operational across the country, and 22.7 million SIM cards have been registered with the ministry.
The acting Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology said: "Currently, there are 22.7 million active SIM cards in the sector, and we define an active SIM card as one that has been used within the past six months. If no calls have been made in six months, that SIM card gets blocked."
According to Najibullah Haqqani, significant sections of the Ministry of Telecommunications were dispersed and under the influence of other ministries and administrations before the Islamic Emirate's return to power.
He also mentioned that a serious effort has been made to combat corruption, and corruption will be eradicated in the future.
Najibullah Haqqani stated: "The companies Afghan Telecom and Afghan Post have come back under the Ministry of Telecommunications, and the ATRA (Afghanistan Telecommunications Regulatory Authority) came under the Ministry of Telecommunications. Now, the Ministry of Telecommunications that we currently oversee differs significantly from the ministry that existed before the Islamic Emirate."
The acting Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology further said that the 10% tax from credit cards is transparently transferred to the state's treasury, revealing that so far, five billion afghani in revenue has been generated from this tax.
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