The peg of transferring the bank and cutting oil and gas revenues.. Houthi lies to loot salaries
English - Saturday 12 August 2023 الساعة 10:54 am
Aden, NewsYemen, Ammar Ali Ahmed:
"Our salaries come from our oil and gas," under this title the Houthi group launched its campaign on social media in response to the campaign launched by politicians, activists, and citizens in areas under its control, demanding the payment of salaries.
The campaign, which was launched under the title "My dignity is in my salary", demanded that the Houthi group pay the salaries of employees in the areas it controls from the revenues it collects in the hundreds of billions.
The Houthi counter-campaign launched by the group's leaders during the past two days repeated the lies they used during the past six years to justify their refusal to pay salaries to employees in the areas they control despite the revenues and levies they impose.
The most prominent of these lies, which the group's leaders repeated, was the talk that the legitimate government's control over oil and gas revenues during the past years was the main reason for the group's inability to pay salaries in the areas under its control, and claimed that they constitute 90% of budget revenues.
These allegations and lies are exposed by figures for the 2014 budget estimates presented by the Government of National Accord and considered the last budget for Yemen before the war, which shows that oil and gas revenues constitute only 45.4% of revenues, while tax and customs revenues constitute 33.8%, and 20% are other revenues.
These numbers are not much different from the figures for the fiscal year 2013 AD, which can be relied upon as an actually implemented budget, as the 2013 budget figures indicate that oil and gas revenues accounted for 49% at an amount of 1036 billion riyals, while tax and customs revenues accounted for 30% of the state’s general revenues at 628 billion. Rial.
In return for these revenues, the salary item in the 2013 budget amounted to 905 billion riyals, and excluding the army and security salaries, which are about 400 billion, the salaries of the civil sector do not exceed 500 billion, and if we take the allegations of the Houthi group that 70% of them are in its regions, then their annual salary bill does not exceeding 350 billion riyals.
And if we adopt the customs and tax revenue figures according to the 2013 AD budget without change, and also take into account the Houthi group’s claims that 70% of commercial activity in Yemen is located in its areas of control, then its annual revenues from taxes and customs according to the 2013 AD figures amount to about 450 billion riyals.
This undermines all the allegations and justifications of the Houthi group for looting the salaries of employees in its areas of control, and its ability to pay it from customs and tax revenues only, according to 2013 figures, with a saving of 100 billion riyals, despite the fact that it doubled these fees several times, and collected them for other important revenues such as communications.
As for the most famous lie that the group is trying to cover up on this file, it is invoking the decision of former President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi to transfer the management of the Central Bank from Sana’a to Aden in late 2016 , and Houthi leaders boast that the bank has been disbursing salaries to the governorates of the Republic since the beginning of the war until the decision to transfer it to Aden .
This is the fallacy that the group passes on to its followers and tries to deceive the Yemenis in its areas of control and exploit their ignorance of the financial aspects, and the fact that the process of disbursing salaries in each governorate is originally linked to its commitment to the process of supplying its revenues to the bank branch, which remained in place until the decision to transfer the bank to Aden was issued.
The process of disbursing salaries in the normal situation is carried out by the central bank or its branches in the governorates from the financial liquidity provided by the revenues that are provided to it as central or joint revenues, and the role of the bank management is limited to supervising this process according to the general budget approved by the go
vernment and to intervene in the event of any shortage in liquidity with Any branch or payroll item that exceeds the amount of revenue generated.
With this process, the process of disbursing salaries throughout the governorates of the Republic took place smoothly during the years 2015-2016 AD, despite the outbreak of war and its violent ignition and the interruption of roads linking the governorates, while the leadership of the group is trying in a funny way to portray the matter as if the management of its bank in Sana’a was sending salaries through Airdrops in the midst of battles and fires to the liberated provinces.
A cynical attempt through which the Houthi group is trying to cover up the fact that the issue of salaries is linked first and foremost to the process of collecting resources and managing them fully and by one legitimate authority that is authorized to do so and bears its responsibility, otherwise it is nothing more than nonsense.
