Yemeni Government Accuses Houthis of Exploiting Truce to Increase Looting

Arab World

December 29th, 9:45am

Aden - Ali Rabih

Part of the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Yemen in the city of Aden. (Saba)

The Central Bank of Yemen in Aden affirmed its commitment to the monetary policies it set to protect the local currency from collapse and maintain the stability of the markets. In parallel, Information Minister Muammar al-Eryani accused the Houthi militia of exploiting the truce to double the looting of resources and increase levies. In an official statement, Al-Eryani said the Iranian-backed terrorist Houthi militia has continued to plunder hundreds of billions of state revenues, without assuming any obligations, and stopped the payment of salaries to public sector employees in the areas under its control, ignoring the difficult economic conditions of citizens and the worsening humanitarian crisis. The Yemeni minister stated that the total revenues looted by the Houthi militia from taxes, customs, zakat, endowments, fuel, and domestic gas amounted in 2020 to 2.3 trillion riyals. Al-Eryani accused the Houthi militia of “taking advantage of the UN-sponsored truce in early 2022 to escalate the systematic looting of public revenues, tax and customs revenues for oil derivatives through the port of Hodeidah and trafficking in smuggled Iranian oil in local markets…” He called on the international community, the United Nations, and US envoys to “exercise real pressure on the Houthi militia, to stop its systematic looting of state revenues, and to allocate it to the regular payment of employee salaries, according to the 2014 civil service database, instead of directing it in favor of the wealth of its leaders…” The Houthi militia has stopped paying the salaries of government employees in the areas under its controls since late 2016, despite collecting hundreds of billions of riyals from the revenues of institutions. Meanwhile, the Central Bank in Aden launched on Wednesday the last session of the meetings of its board of directors for the current year 2022, headed by the bank’s governor Ahmed Ahmed Ghaleb. The Yemeni official media stated that the meeting reviewed “the bank’s financial statements for the period 2016-2020, the observations submitted by the external auditor, and issues related to strengthening the principles of transparency, governance, and control procedures for the banking sector and exchange companies.”

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/4069526/yemeni-government-accuses-houthis-exploiting-truce-increase-looting