The Taliban militants, not the Afghan government, are collecting payments from consumers of electricity generated from the Kajaki hydroelectric power project in the country’s southern Helmand province, according to an Afghan news website.

Officials in the Helmand province, a hotbed of Taliban-led militancy, confirmed that the consumers are paying their electricity bills to the Taliban, according to a report on the Afghan website pajhwok.com

Haji Mullah Sharafuddin, the administrative head of the Kajaki district, the Taliban have been usurping the state’s right to receive income from the huge dam in the form of bills in the Kajaki, Sangin and Zamindar districts.

Haji Mullah Sharafuddin said the Taliban gobbles up the money which belongs to the government. He stated that the Taliban neither attacks power installations nor blows up the pylons carrying electricity to the provincial capital, Lashkargah, and neighbouring Kandahar province.

Muhammad Gulab Mangal, the governor of Helmand, also confirmed the collection of bills by the Taliban in their strongholds. The Kajaki dam generates 32 megawatts of electricity, supplied not only to the Helmand districts but also to the neighboring Kandahar province, the Taliban's birthplace. 

Source: www.pajhwok.com, Afghanistan, December 21, 2009