The Constitution and Sovereignty... Banners that hide the reality of shouting against the Telecommunications Agreement with the UAE
English - Wednesday 30 August 2023 الساعة 05:29 pm
Mocha, NewsYemen, exclusive:
Although a week has passed since the government approved the agreement to establish a joint telecommunications company with the Emirati company NX, the agreement is still facing a violent campaign by forces and figures within the presidential camp under allegations that it violates the constitution and violates sovereignty.
The most recent of these positions was the letter sent by a member of the Presidential Leadership Council, Othman Majli, to the Speaker of the Council, demanding that Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik be referred to investigation, along with everyone connected to the files covered by the recent House of Representatives report, and that all agreements and procedures that had been signed be canceled, in reference to the agreement.
Majali's position rejecting the agreement coincides with the justifications contained in the letter of the Speaker of Parliament and the report of the committee assigned by the parliament to investigate a number of files, which were directed to the Prime Minister and published after the government's approval of the agreement.
These justifications were met with a counter-campaign by southern activists on social media, who considered the attack against the agreement a continuation of the ongoing obstruction policy imposed by the influential forces, led by the Brotherhood, to prevent the normalization of conditions in the liberated governorates in the service of the Houthi group.
The Southern Campaign harshly criticized the Presidency of the House of Representatives and its members who objected to the agreement, and confirmed that it was driven by influential members of the Muslim Brotherhood due to their failure in trying to control the communications file in the liberated areas through companies affiliated with them, after the deliberate disruption to which the “Aden Net” company was subjected.
These accusations refer to two influential businessmen: Hamid Al-Ahmar, who owns the “Sabavon” company operating in the liberated areas, and Ahmed Al-Issa, who owns the “Y” company. He was the first to raise the issue of the agreement in the media and direct accusations of corruption cases against the Prime Minister last April, and received a response from the Council of Ministers.
Representatives formed an investigation committee from its members on these accusations. In a position that activists considered - at the time - unprecedented by the parliament, it reflects the size of Al-Eisi's influence, prompting his statements on the media to form a parliamentary commission of inquiry, while the parliament ignored all accusations of corruption cases and criticism of the disastrous performance of legitimacy since 2015, and caused a military, economic and service collapse.
Private sources to "NewsYemen" revealed important details in the progress of the work of the parliamentary committee, the decision to form it by Council Speaker Sultan Al-Barakani on April 9 stipulated that it submit its final report within two weeks from the date it began its mission, which was done on May 1 with a contract. The committee held its first meeting in Aden and met with the two-time Prime Minister and officials in the ministries of oil, electricity, and communications and their affiliated institutions during the month of May.
The committee's report reveals that it requested an extension of its work for a third week, but this was rejected by the President of the Council, who demanded its immediate departure and that two members of the committee residing in Aden be assigned to receive the rest of the official responses from government agencies, freezing the committee's activity for three months.
The sources revealed that the members of the committee were suddenly summoned by the Presidency of the House of Representatives to Cairo last week following the government’s approval of the agreement, and were asked to quickly submit the final report as a reaction to the government’s action, which clearly reveals the presence of pressure from forces and figures to confront the approval of the agreement.
Parliament's use of the "constitution" weapon in the face of the government to stop the agreement was met with condemnation and ridicule by activists and followers on social media, given the constitutional violations underlying Parliament's own procedures.
As journalist Ali Saeed Al-Saqqaf says in a post on Facebook, he is surprised by the Parliament Presidency’s demand that the government respect the constitution.
Al-Saqqaf explains: As long as the Council talks about the constitution and laws, why does it not return to exercising its constitutional powers of legislation and oversight? How did the Presidency allow itself to form a parliamentary committee to investigate the facts in a meeting of the Presidency and the heads of the parliamentary blocs, in violation of the constitutional texts that stipulate that investigation committees are formed based on a request submitted by a number of members of the House of Representatives, which the Council discusses in a parliamentary session, and that the committee submits its report to the Council to discuss it and take action accordingly.
As for the "sovereignty" banner, the journalist and member of the Dialogue Conference, Saleh Al-Baydani, responds to it in his tweet on the "X" platform, recalling the announcement by the former Minister of Transport, Saleh Al-Jabwani, from Ankara of the signing of an agreement with his Turkish counterpart, according to which Turkey will develop Yemeni ports and airports, in January 2020 and at the height of tension between Turkey and the coalition countries.
Al-Baydani says: The House of Representatives, in which the influential group resides within one residential complex in Istanbul, did not move at the time, while this group, which hijacked the House’s worn-out decision, moved when talking about any potential investment activity by one of the Arab coalition countries, whether in Al-Mahra, Aden, or the south in general. .
Al-Baydani believes that “raising the shirt of ‘sovereignty’ to obstruct any investment that could provide economic gains to the liberated areas is a ‘crude expression of the interests of selfish personalities infected with ideological obsession and the desire to seize everything,’” he said.
