“It is not enough” .. a Houthi excuse to loot oil revenues and not pay salaries
English - Thursday 02 June 2022 الساعة 09:40 am
Sana'a, NewsYemen, private:
The terrorist Houthi militia, Iran's arm in Yemen, created a new excuse to evade paying the salaries of public sector employees in its areas of control, as well as setting new conditions for the implementation of this clause, following local, regional and international pressures for its commitment to pay salaries.
The head of the so-called political council of the Houthi militia, Mahdi al-Mashat, claimed the firmness of Sana’a’s position and its keenness to resolve the state employee’s salary file, as well as continuing efforts to alleviate the suffering of employees caused by the interruption of salaries since the transfer of central bank jobs to Aden, despite his non-recognition of the bank in Aden.
Al-Mashat, during an event to graduate batches of his security militia, admitted that he had taken a decision more than a year ago to allocate the revenues of ships in Hodeidah to calculate the salary as stipulated in the Stockholm Agreement in December 2018 under the auspices of the United Nations, but he claimed that the agreement provided for the government to cover the deficit and the gap in The amount of the salary from oil and gas revenues, before indicating that the revenues of the oil ships are not sufficient to pay half a salary, except after accumulating them for several months.
These allegations were reiterated by the Minister of Finance in the unrecognized Sanaa government, Rashid Abu Lahoum, who said that his group was ready to allocate the revenues of oil ships in the port of Hodeidah to pay the salaries of all state employees, but stipulated that the other party - the legitimate government - was committed to covering the deficit gap in the amount of salaries according to to the Stockholm Agreement.
He said that his government is committed to supplying all revenues of oil derivatives ships to the account of the Central Bank branch in Hodeidah governorate, according to the agreement with the United Nations, and that his government, eight months after the agreement, opened an account at the Central Bank branch in Hodeidah, specifically in August 2019.
The militias’ repetition of the phrase “covering the gap and the deficit” confirms that they want to repudiate this obligation and hold the legitimate government responsible for paying the salaries, forgetting that the government is obligated to pay the salaries of state employees in the liberated areas as well as the displaced employees, and it also paid the salaries of members of the judiciary, even those working in militia-controlled areas .
What is surprising is that these statements and confessions from the Houthi militia came after nearly 4 years of the agreement, and after they had disposed of all the revenues of the oil ships, as these statements were not present when the former UN envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, accused the militias of looting the revenues of the oil ships and acting on the account from one side.
The militias, in their new statements, claimed that Sweden’s economic accords stipulated that the revenues of Hodeidah ports be deposited in the Central Bank of Yemen through its branch in Hodeidah Governorate to “contribute” to paying the salaries of state employees throughout Yemen, and that the government in Aden covers the gap and deficit on the grounds that the ports’ monthly revenues It constitutes only 10 to 15 percent of the amount of salaries amounting to 75 billion riyals, according to the 2014 statements.
Local politicians believe that the militias resorted to this pretext after the end of Griffith's term in Yemen, while he remained silent during Griffith's statements, which he made in mid-July 2020, in which he confirmed that the militias unilaterally calculated the salaries and that they withdrew sums of money estimated at the time by the government at $58 million. .
In the context of a report published by the militia website "Sabanet", the militias admitted that they unilaterally disposed of the revenues of oil ships in the port of Hodeidah under the pretext of covering half the salary of the employees every two or three months.
It is not excluded that this is a new evasion by the Houthi militia, which is under international and local pressure due to its failure to pay salaries and open roads in accordance with the terms of the humanitarian truce, which the legitimate government has committed to all its provisions represented by opening Sana’a International Airport to commercial flights and allowing oil ships to enter the port of Hodeidah.
