Al-Mashat's screams and the Houthi predicament in the salary file
English - Saturday 09 September 2023 الساعة 06:27 pm
Sanaa, NewsYemen, exclusive:
From insulting employees to betraying Parliament, the recent statements of the leader of the Houthi group, Mahdi Al-Mashat, revealed the depth of the crisis and fears among his group regarding the issue of disbursing salaries in the areas under its control.
In his speeches at meetings organized by the group last week, Al-Mashat described the voices demanding the payment of salaries from the revenues plundered by the group as “fools” and accused them of “serving the enemy” in reference to the coalition.
Al-Mashat's attack went so far as to accuse the pro-group House of Representatives in Sana'a of treason, by talking about the reason for the group's refusal to submit annual budgets to him, as he said that it came as a result of the leak of the budget that it presented to the House in 2019 to the Security Council Sanctions Committee.
Al-Mashat's sharp statements reflected the extent of the fears and anxiety that the group is experiencing regarding the escalation of voices from within the areas under its control during the recent period by disbursing salaries from the revenues collected by the group, amounting to hundreds of billions.
The group believes that the escalation of these voices comes as a result of the continuation of the truce agreement that stopped armed confrontations on the front lines since April 2022, which eliminated the group’s only justification for preventing the disbursement of salaries, which is war.
The fall of the justification for the war, the continuation of the truce for about a year and a half, and the return of the activity of the Hodeidah ports under its control, raised questions about the fate of revenues in the areas controlled by the Houthi group, in terms of taxes and customs, which doubled what was the case before the war, according to what the legitimate government says, confirming that during this period they amounted to about four. One trillion and 620 billion riyals.
The matter did not stop at the demands and calls on social media sites. Rather, the group found itself facing real action on the ground through the widespread strike carried out by teachers in the areas under its control, which caused the disruption of the school year that the group launched at the beginning of last August.
What compounded the group’s crisis was its continued failure to impose its demands on the negotiating table run by the Sultanate of Oman to renew the UN truce, the most important of which is sharing oil and gas revenues produced in the liberated governorates under the pretext of disbursing salaries in areas under its control.
The Houthi group, in an attempt to confront this impasse, promoted through its leaders allegations of progress in Omani efforts to resolve controversial issues, most notably the salaries file, which a government source denied on Wednesday, in a statement to the German News Agency.
The government source confirmed that the consultations led by the United Nations with the participation of the Sultanate of Oman are still suffering from a continuing stagnation, especially in the salaries file, pointing out that an Omani delegation will visit Riyadh to discuss the outstanding issues.
The failure of the Houthi group to impose its demands, especially in the salary file, puts the group before difficult options to deal with any developments that may occur as a result of the escalation of demands within the areas under its control for the disbursement of salaries as the truce continues to take effect month after month and the group’s inability to bear the cost of the decision to end the truce and return to war.
