From the port to the cashier.. the symbols of "sovereignty" and the printed currency disaster
English - Thursday 15 June 2023 الساعة 09:27 am
Aden, NewsYemen, Ammar Ali Ahmed:
In his television interview with the official "Yemen" channel, the governor of the Central Bank, Ahmed Ghaleb Al-Maabqi, described the legitimate government's resort to printing currency after the war without cash cover from hard currency as an "economic setback."
This economic setback, which the bank governor confirms is the main reason for the deteriorating economic situation and the collapse of the currency in the liberated governorates, was undertaken by the legitimate government in late 2016 AD, following the decision of former President Hadi to move the headquarters of the Central Bank to Aden.
Although the matter came in the absence of cash cover from hard currency, the justifications at the time were that it was necessary to confront the severe crisis in cash liquidity following the transfer decision, but that was not the case, as the bank governor says.
According to the man, the government relied entirely on currency printing to finance its expenditures from 2016 AD, and it continued until the end of 2021 AD, that is, for about 6 years, and in huge quantities, exceeding 2,500 billion riyals, which is the size of the monetary block currently in the liberated areas, he says.
What deepened the catastrophe of the matter was that the government and the bank's management printed a new currency instead of printing the old currency as it was in the beginning, a procedure that made it easier for the Houthi group in late 2018 to prevent its circulation in its areas of control.
The Houthi group's prevention of the new currency produced financial separation in Yemen and divided the country into two countries and two currencies, according to Al-Maabqi, and restricted a large monetary block estimated at 2,500 billion riyals to one part of the country "the liberated areas", and a small, dilapidated monetary block that does not exceed 800 billion in the other part. From the country "areas of Houthi control", and this resulted in a big difference in the exchange rate of the two currencies against hard currencies.
The catastrophe of the matter does not stop there. Rather, the governor of the bank adds a sarcastic description of the form of the legitimate government's handling and management of the process of printing the local currency during the past years, summarizing it with the phrase "from the port to the cashier", in a disastrous and shocking expression.
The man reveals that the quantities of printed currency that used to arrive in the port of Aden in batches did not even reach the coffers of the central bank in Aden, but rather went directly to exchange companies and shops, which today control the monetary mass in the liberated governorates, which numbered more than 1000, while the licensed Its by the Central Bank only 320, says the governor.
With this "from the port to the cashier", the governor presents a condensed picture of the disastrous and absurd administration that characterized the era of former President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, which produced all this economic, political and military failure in the battle of the Yemenis against the coup of the Houthi militia funded by Iran.
In the midst of this disastrous and absurd scene, what arouses anger and ridicule more is the impersonation of the role of the national opposition and the bidding of slogans such as "sovereignty" and "state institutions" by some of the founders of this disastrous scene, including the catastrophe of printing the currency made by the legitimate government headed by Ahmed Obaid bin Dagher and his deputy. The first was Abdulaziz Jabari, and his other deputy, Ahmed Al-Maysari, and the ministers of that stage, including Saleh Al-Jabwani.
Asmaa emerged later, after losing their government positions, as "national opposition symbols in the face of the coalition's futility, violation of Yemen's sovereignty, targeting its unity, and the destruction of state institutions," of which the Central Bank is one, and it is the same bank whose coffers did not pass 2,500 billion riyals printed during the era of these "national symbols." , it was arriving "from the port to the cashier".
