Referring to the growing criticism of the millions of afghanis allocated by the Afghan government for the consultative Loya Jirga, Amrullah Saleh, the first vice president of Afghanistan, in a Facebook post on Thursday said that 4.2 billion Afs ($55.8M USD) are spent on the security of the VIPs in the country on an annual basis.

“I was expecting criticism about the astronomical figures that the government allocates--4.2 billion Afs--for the security of VIPs in the country annually. Some of these VIPs, unfortunately, spend half of their time in weakening the system in pursuit of their personal agendas,” said Saleh, in response to Jirga critics.

“I hope there will be a discussion about the astronomical figures to find out how much money is spent on security for whom. Consulting the nation and respecting the views of the nation is more precious than any other thing,” added Saleh, defending the government’s move to hold the Jirga.

President Ashraf Ghani has allocated 330 million Afs ($4.3M USD) for the consultative Loya Jirga. 

 The Jirga will have 51 working committees. Women constitute 30 percent of the Jirga.

The Loya Jirga is expected to last three to five days.