Houthi media leaders accused of looting a million dollars in the name of the Prophet's birth

English - Monday 03 October 2022 الساعة 04:18 pm
Sana'a, NewsYemen, private:

Sources in the Ministry of Information of the Houthi militia government, the Iranian arm in Yemen, revealed the theft of the budget for the celebration of the Prophet's birthday.

The sources told NewsYemen that the leadership of the Houthi Ministry of Information, which is run by "Dhaif Allah al-Shami" and "Nasr al-Din Amer", and a number of members of the Houthi media organization looted the financial allocations that were allocated by the militia government under the name of media coverage of the celebrations of the Prophet's birth.

The sources added: The budget allocated for media coverage of the events of the birth of the Prophet is more than (500) million Yemeni riyals, which is equivalent to nearly one million US dollars - specifically more than (900,000) US dollars a little (at the exchange rate of one dollar, 555 riyals), and its disposal was entrusted to the Minister of Information  Al-Houthi Dhaifallah Al-Shami and some of his aides in the media organization of the militias, but the process of disbursing this money was done in a way that no one knows except Al-Shami and some of the Houthi leaders, most notably the head of Saba Agency Nasr Al-Din Amer.

The sources continued: The proposal to spend the budget stipulated allocating funds to all official media outlets and television and radio channels funded by the militias, such as Al-Hawiya channel, Al-Lahdah channel, and others.  However, the Houthi Ministry of Information did not disburse that money to the media outlets as planned, which provoked disagreements between the leaders of those media and the Houthi information minister.

The Minister of Militia Information held a meeting for the media under the control of his ministry in mid-September, and reviewed with them the programs of celebrations, activities and events for the anniversary of their coup on September 21, and then the program for the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday and asked them to cover all activities and celebrations on a daily basis, and promised them to transfer some financial allocations as support from his ministry to help them in carrying out this coverage.

However, the sources confirmed that the Houthi leader and his ministry violated their obligations and were satisfied with spending some small sums of money for some media outlets whose leaders have a special relationship with the Minister of Information, while they shared the rest of the budget with media leaders whose number does not exceed one hand.

The head of the Saba Agency received the largest share of the robbery of funds covering the events of the Mawlid.

The budget turned into a source of conflict, and the director of Al-Mouqa channel, "Abed Al-Mahathari," filed a complaint with the militia leader's office, accusing Al-Shami and Amer of looting the budget for media coverage of the birth, before others joined him in the complaint.

Last year, media leaders and activists affiliated with the militias accused Nasr Al-Din Amer, who was then undersecretary of the Ministry of Information - before he was appointed head of the Saba Agency - of looting the budget allocated to media institutions and the press cadre who covered the central celebration in Sanaa on the occasion of the birth of the Prophet, which was estimated at:  (250) million riyals.