Afghan Parliament Dismissed 2 More Ministers, 1 Survived

Afghan parliament dismissed two more cabinet ministers on Sunday despite of a plea from the National Unity Government (NUG) leaders to suspend the process.

After a long discussion and a one-hour ultimatum, the lawmakers removed the transportation and education ministers over poor performance on their development budgets. Finance minister Eklil Hakimi was the only minister to survive the vote.

Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi, speaker of the House of Representatives requested the government leadership to introduce other candidates to these positions.

This comes as earlier on Saturday the parliament dismissed the foreign affairs minister Salahuddin Rabbani, public works minister Mahmoud Baligh and labor, social affairs, martyrs and disabled minister Nasrin Oryakhail after an impeachment.

Following the dismissals, NUG leaders met the members of the Administrative Board of Parliament and chairman of parliament’s commissions on Sunday night and urged them to stop the process.

On Sunday, despite of pre-scheduled session, the finance, education and transportation minister did not appear for impeachment.

Lawmakers put ballot boxes for the ministers and used their votes in which two ministers dismissed and one was survived.

Now the total number of dismissed ministers reached to five over the last two days.