By Kay Johnson September 27 at 6:10 PM  
    KABUL  Afghanistan will delay    payment of salaries to hundreds of thousands of civil servants    next month because it does not have enough money, a finance    ministry official said Saturday.  
    The acknowledgment of the shortfall highlights the huge    challenges facing new leader Ashraf Ghani, who is to be sworn    in as president of the violence-torn country Monday after    months of turmoil following a disputed election result.  
    The October shortfall will affect only civilian government    workers  Afghan military and police salaries should be paid on    time because that money is taken from a separate fund, the    official added.  
    Security remains a priority in Afghanistan as government    forces continue to battle the Taliban.  
    On Saturday, Afghan villagers hanged four captured Taliban    militants from a tree as security forces battled the insurgents    for a sixth day in a district of Ghazni province, an official    said. The hangings were carried out after Taliban fighters    killed more than 100 people in the area in the past week,    including more than a dozen who were beheaded, said Mohammad    Ali Ahmadi, the deputy governor of Ghazni.  
    Alongside the fight against Taliban insurgents, Afghanistans    fiscal crisis is the most immediate problem facing Ghani and    coalition partner Abdullah Abdullah. The two agreed to a unity    government last week, breaking the election deadlock.  
    Afghanistans treasury holds less than the 6.5billion    afghanis ($116 million) needed to begin processing monthly    salaries, said Alhaj Mohammad Aqa, the treasury director    general. He would not say how much money the government has in    its coffers, only that it is not enough to meet the payroll.  
    Right now, we dont have that much, Aqa said.  
    It will be the first time in recent years that the government    has had to delay payment of salaries because of a lack of    funds, Aqa said, although he acknowledged that civil servants    are often paid late because of poor administration.  
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Afghanistan will delay paying civil servants