Acting Minister of Mines and Petroleum Shehabuddin Delawar said on Tuesday that all 38 of last year’s graduates of Geology and Mining of Kabul Polytechnic University have been offered work in mining companies.

Speaking at a ceremony in this regard, Delawar said that Afghanistan has rich mineral resources and they have the responsibility to manage these resources properly and work with honesty and loyalty so that the country can achieve self-sufficiency.

“Thanks Allah, from lead to gold, zinc and copper; from ruby to turquoise, we have everything. Only hard work, dedication and honesty is needed,” Delawar said.

Meanwhile, the officials of the Polytechnic University stated that companies and government institutions should employ local people.

“Let’s choose our engineer with little experience and knowledge to a foreign engineer who is knowledgeable and experienced. He will never benefit us, but the same engineer with lack of experience and knowledge will benefit us,” said Abdul Rashid Iqbal, the chancellor of Kabul Polytechnic University.

Shirbaz Kaminzadeh, the head of Afghan Invest Company, said: “Let’s find the potential in our country. Let’s extract our mines on our own. Until we are capable of this, we will use foreign engineers. We will employ and pay 75 percent of these students who graduated today.”

The Islamic Emirate has signed mineral contracts worth billions of dollars with local and foreign companies.