Afghan Biographies

Rahmani, Roya Mrs.


Name Rahmani, Roya Mrs.
Ethnic backgr. Tajik
Date of birth 1978
Function/Grade Ex Ambassador
History and Biodata

2. Previous Functions:

international development and governance consultant,
worked with Rights and Democracy,
the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
High Commissioner for Human Rights,
NYC Department of Education
Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education
Advisor to the Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Ambassador to Indonesia (20160405-20181124)
Ambassador to USA (20181124 - 20210514)


3. Biodata:
Roya Rahmani  was born 1978 . In the civil war she and her family moved first to Pakistan and then to Canada where she finishes her education. She became a Canadian citizen. In 2004 she returned to Afghanistan. She is an international development and governance consultant, specializing in gender and human rights programming.  She has worked with Rights and Democracy, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the NYC Department of Education, and the Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education among others. She is currently working as an advisor to the Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She holds a masters degree in Public Administration from Columbia University and a B.SC from McGill University. She has won several awards and fellowships and is a Fulbright Scholar.
 

The appointment of Rahmani as the new Afghan Ambassador to Indonesia comes as President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani vowed to give more share to women in the leadership of diplomatic missions outside the country. The Afghan lawmaker Shukria Barekzai was earlier appointed as the Afghan Ambassador to Norway and took over duties last year.(20170908)


President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has appointed Roya Rahmani as the new ambassador of Afghanistan to United States. She is the first female Afghan Ambassador to the USA. (20181124)

The Afghan Ambassador to the United States, Roya Rahmani, has appointed Mir Haris Ansari, the son-in-law of Shad Mohammad Sargand, a senior adviser to President Ashraf Ghani on infrastructure, as an embassy employee. Ansari was sent to the embassy under the pretext of assessing the crack in a 70 m wall of the Afghan embassy in Washington DC, which is estimated to cost nearly $2 million. But how is Ansari, who is a diplomat, able to fix a technical issue such as a crack in the wall? According to sources, the daughter of Shad Mohammad Sargand, who is the wife of Ansari, lives in the United States and Sargand sent his son-in-law to Washington under the same pretext. Ansari at the same time was given the task of assessing the crack on the wall of the Afghan embassy. Documents show that Ansari was appointed as the third secretary of the Afghan embassy in Egypt in June 2019, but sources have told that he (Ansari) never worked at that post.(20191226)

Afghan ambassador to Washington, Roya Rahmani, took the responsibility of the embassy wall construction from an individual named Barakatullah Rahmati for “corruption” in the project and she appointed Yama Nizam, special advisor of former finance minister Humayun Qayyumi, as supervisor of the project. A source explained: “The ambassador (Roya Rahmani) changed the previous calculations for the project in consultation with Yama Nizam, Humayun Qayyumi, some members of the National Procurement Commission and Presidential Adviser Shad Mohammad. JG Construction Company initially offered to build the 70 m wall at a cost of 68,100 US dollars but later raised the price to over 88,000 US dollars. Instead, in a letter 912 dated October 26, 2019, a contract was signed with an American-based company KADCON Corporation at a cost of 1,586,000 US dollars – a decision the central government has accepted. A source quoted finance diplomats of the embassy as saying, the money had not been paid directly to the project’s contractors but through cheques from a third party via the embassy’s financial account.(20200711)

The ambassador called Haris Ansari to Washington, son-in-law of the project supervisor Shah Mohammad Sargand from Kabul, but after the issue was reported in the media, the president ordered Haris’s dismissal and Ansari sought refuge in the US instead of returning to Kabul and disappeared without returning the official cards to the embassy.(20200711)

Documents showed that money spent on the 70 m wall construction had been transferred to the embassy account by cheque and then landed in Rahmani’s account. The contract of the wall construction with CADCON Company has Rahmani’s signature. Over $900,000 have been embezzled in construction of the Afghanistan’s Washington embassy’s wall, the Meshrano Jirga Commission for International Affairs claimed on Tuesday, Nov 11, 2020.


Mrs. Roia Rahmani has a 2 year old daughter (20160206)

She speaks Pashtu, Urdu and English.

Last Modified 2021-05-14
Established 2011-01-28