A Houthi leader admits that his group has spent zakat money on commercial projects

English - Thursday 22 April 2021 الساعة 10:25 pm
Sana'a, NewsYemen:

A Houthi leader admitted that the Iranian arm is spending the zakat money on commercial projects for the group's members.

Where the leader acknowledged that his group would seize the money collected from merchants and citizens, under the names of zakat, and spend it personally to finance commercial projects on the group’s members.

The head of the so-called General Authority for Zakat of the Houthi militia, Shamsan Abu Nashtan, said that he plans to establish hundreds of companies, shops and agricultural economic projects with zakat funds.

Abu Nashtan’s speech came a few hours later, from a temporary agreement between him and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the Amanat Al-Asimah and stopping the campaign against merchants, indicating that his organization plans to support 1,000 Houthi farmers from the authority’s funds.

Within two days, its authority closed more than 600 companies and shops in the Capital Municipality to demand levies and doubling of zakat funds, including non-commercial debts.

The Houthi militia relies heavily on agriculture for its funding in several governorates, the most important of which is Saada.

Abu Nashtan added that the Houthi militia has another commercial enterprise in the clothing trade, with more than 1,200 "family" business projects covering more than 100 families in the market in Sana'a.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced that it had reached a temporary truce, between it and the Houthi militia through the Houthi Zakat Authority, after the militia felt the danger of any unified agreement for the private sector that refused to accept its arbitrary demands.

The agreement stipulates, according to what was published by the Chamber of Commerce, that all merchants hand over all their data, business and financial statements and include bad and non-bad debts and the use of accounting systems to save the Houthi militia the effort to estimate zakat, in exchange for a temporary halt to a Houthi campaign in which the Houthi police, intelligence and popular committees participate, and its security  Preventive, reopening of more than 600 closed companies.

The agreement also stipulated that merchants pay zakat on debts and others, even what is known as non-commercial debt, and the agreement also obligates the owners of companies to pay 25% for this year only 2020, provided that the two parties review through the judiciary the 2019 and 2018 data.