Theft of government electricity generators.. Profitable investment projects for the Taiz Brotherhood
English - Sunday 01 August 2021 الساعة 08:51 am
Taiz, NewsYemen, special:
Last Wednesday, the Director General of the Water Corporation in Taiz revealed that, during the Eid al-Adha holiday, the corporation was exposed to the theft of equipment from its warehouses, which are guarded by Brigade 22, one of the military wing of the Brotherhood.
The theft incident was not something new in the city, which is in a state of lawlessness managed by the army and security formations under the control of the Brotherhood, in a situation that has become applicable to the proverb saying “Its protector is its thief.”
However, what is remarkable about the theft of the Water Corporation is the disclosure of what was stolen and the manner in which it was carried out. The thefts were three electricity generators, two of which were new, which the Corporation received as a gift before Eid from an international organization, in addition to three power transformers.
The size of this equipment clearly indicates that the theft was carried out with the complicity, if not by the warehouse guards, who are from the 22nd Mica Brigade. Transferring generators and transformers from the warehouses is a process that requires a winch with one or more locomotives, meaning that it is a process that may take more than an hour. .
That is, the objective of the operation was to steal electricity generators from the institution's stores, which reminds us of dozens of incidents in which government and private agencies have been looted by armed groups affiliated with the Brotherhood.
What is interesting is that the Taiz Water Corporation was exposed exactly a year ago, specifically in August 2020 AD, to the theft of an electricity generator belonging to the Corporation in the well of Al-Nour City, by the so-called / Aziz Al-Mikhlafi, one of the leaders of the 170th Air Defense Brigade, which is under the control of the Brotherhood.
Incidents that made the theft of generators in Taiz resemble an organized operation led by a gang specialized in this field, and this was evident since the beginning of the war and with every liberation operation of areas in the city of Taiz, and as soon as the guns became silent and an area was controlled and liberated from the control of the Houthi militia.
Where the generators of government buildings and institutions in particular were a clear target of burglary, as most of them are of large size and power exceeding megawatts, and among the government institutions that were looted of their generators after their liberation were the Central Bank branch, Taiz University, the College of Medicine affiliated to the university, the Republic Foundation, and the offices of finance, taxes, post and health. Tuberculosis Center.
The Asfirah power station was also looted by a number of small electric generators with a power of 2 megabytes that were provided to the station from Saudi Arabia in 2013, in addition to dozens of generators belonging to commercial facilities and villas belonging to businessmen.
The Brotherhood, through the leadership of the axis, tried to transfer these looted generators out of Taiz and sell them, but the matter turned into a scandal, as it happened in mid-2017, when a resistance point in Lahj governorate thwarted an attempt to smuggle an electric generator on board a transport truck, on its way to the city of Lahj. Aden, on orders from the axis, turned out to be looted from the city of Taiz.
This scandal apparently prompted the Brotherhood to invest these electric generators in establishing commercial generating companies and selling them to citizens at exorbitant prices, as an example of this is the “Brothers” company for the sale of electric power in the city of Taiz, affiliated with the leader Muhammad al-Jaradi, who is considered the most prominent aide to the leader of the Brotherhood’s militias Yahya Al-Rimi.
It is noteworthy that a conflict between the partners of this company in April of the year 2020 AD exposed this fact, as the brother of the called Muhammad Shamsan appeared in a video clip exposing the story of the establishment of the company between his brother with Brotherhood leaders in Brigade 22, including Al-Jaradi, and confirms that its generators were looted and that its generators belong to a branch The central bank was looted.
The Brotherhood was not satisfied with looting state generators and turning them into commercial projects, but also extended to exploiting government electricity lines to deliver electricity from its companies to homes and shops, through a contract concluded between these companies and the branch of the Electricity Corporation, which was run by Brotherhood Aref Ghaleb Abdel Hamid, in return for 10% of the profits. .
The disclosure of the terms of this contract was one of the reasons for the outbreak of the recent protests in Taiz, which succeeded in overthrowing a number of corrupt Brotherhood leaders, including Aref Ghaleb.
However, the Brotherhood's crimes against electricity in Taiz did not stop here. In order to continue making profits through its commercial companies, the group worked to obstruct any government efforts to restart the government's Asifra station.
According to reliable sources, the Emirates Red Crescent and the Salman Relief Center offered on two separate occasions to repair the Asifra power station, which is controlled by members of the 22nd Brigade of the Brotherhood, to return it to service and ensure its supply of fuel, but this was thwarted on the pretext that the station is "on the line of fire." .
Last May, a report submitted to the governor, Nabil Shamsan, by Amin Ahmed Al-Hajj, head of the Defense Committee, revealed the excesses and violations of the dismissed Director General of the Electricity Corporation, Arif Abdel Hamid, including his attempt to smuggle mobile generators located in the yard of the Asifra station, and said that the attempt failed.
The report also revealed that the dismissed manager had raised an exaggerated budget for the cost of maintaining the Asafra station by about 600 thousand US dollars (about 540 million riyals), stressing that the real cost does not exceed 28 million riyals only.
