Abdullah Habibzai has stepped down from his position as acting mayor of Kabul. 

The Presidential Palace said Habibzai’s resignation has been accepted by President Ashraf Ghani.

Habibzai was appointed as acting mayor of Kabul in April 2016.

His appointment came after a two year gap in the leadership at the Kabul Municipality. The Kabul municipality iwas run by caretakers since December 2014.

Habibzai told TOLOnews his basic activities during this term included “a basic reform and establishing a system at the municipality, changing the formerly corrupt municipality to a transparent and accountable administration, reforms in laws and regulations, planning and implementation of big road and canal projects, and improvement of Kabul cleaning process for the first time”.

He said a number of other projects were also in the pipeline  He said the metro bus and a master plan on public transport in the city are also about to be implemented.

He added that work was also done to establish a new Kabul city traffic management system.

Despite many construction projects in the past 15 years, residents say the city still needs infrastructure development projects and that it needs proper plans to manage the underground water resources and reduce air pollution.