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Houthi militias loot $2.5 billion in staff salaries
 [ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] August marks the passing of one year since the Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews... militias in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... stopped paying the salaries of more than 1.2 million civil employees in the civil and military sectors. As per the state budget for 2014 (the latest public budget prepared in Yemen), the monthly salaries paid reach YR 80 billion (equivalent to $216 million), which means, the total of the sum looted by Houthi militias during the past 12 months amounted to 960 billion Yemeni riyals. This sum is equivalent to two billion and 592 million dollars, (one dollar equals 360 riyals) at the moment. During the past month of Ramadan, the government of the coup in Sanaa evaded the demands of employees through the issuing of what is known as the ration book, which was a deceitful maneuver. The ration book offered a value equivalent to half a salary for one or two months to be received by the employees in the form of goods or food supplies and through certain contracted commercial companies. Hundreds of thousands of employees were forced to purchase goods with exaggerated prices. These difference in prices found its way into the pockets of militia leaders and supervisors. The Government of Yemen agreed to a UN proposal; the UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed referred to as a solution that would guarantee payment of salaries if implemented. However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... observers rule out that the Houthi militias would agree to supply revenues from their areas of control to a neutral institution to keep this tragic situation on going and plunder hundreds of millions of dollars. Posted by: Fred 2017-08-03 |
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