UN: Yemeni parties meet in Amman on Economic Provisions of Hudayda Agreement

Amman (Debriefer) -Economic Report
2019-05-14 | Since 5 Year

اضغط هنا لقراءة الخبر بالعربية

The Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary General for Yemen announced on Monday that it will meet the Yemeni parties in Amman on Tuesday 14 May, to discuss implementation of the economic provisions of the Hodeida Agreement reached in Sweden in December 2018.

The office said in a statement on its website that the issues to be discussed will include the management of revenues from the ports of Hideida, Ras Isa and Salif, and their use for the payment of public sector salaries in Hodeida governorate and throughout the country.

According to the statement The Special Envoy encourages the parties to engage constructively and with good faith to agree the modalities of implementation, for the benefit of the people in Hodeida and the whole of Yemen.

The Office of the UN Special Envoy to Yemen is based in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

The date of these meetings coincides with the last day of the period set for the withdrawal of Huthi forces from the ports of the province of Hodeida in western Yemen, which began to withdraw last Saturday.

Yemen has been battered by a five-year armed conflict the internationally recognised government backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition and the Iran-backed Houthis. The conflict has resulted in the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The two sides signed the Stockholm Agreement during UN-sponsored peace talks in Sweden in December. The implementation of the agreement should have started in January.


Payroll is the main issue


The issue of paying salaries of government employees is one of the most important issues of public concern in Yemen because it is linked to the livelihood of citizens and employees, most of whom suffer from difficult living and humanitarian conditions, especially in the densely populated northern governorates. The "legitimate" government decided in September 2016 to transfer the headquarters of the Central Bank of Yemen from Sanaa to the city of Aden, which the government takes as the interim capital of the country, in order to control the central bank under the hands of the Houthis.

Hadi government pledged as it decided to transfer the central bank to Aden by paying the salaries of all state employees, but it failed to refrain from implementing its commitments. Prior to that, the bank paid the salaries of state employees in all governorates despite it was under the control of the Houthis.

Yemen 4-year war has left most of the population in need for a type of humanitarian aid and immediate protection, including 14 million people risking famine and some 1.8 million children suffering malnutrition.

In the same context , sources close to the Yemeni Central Bank's leadership's in Aden told "Debriefer" international news agency that the Yemeni Central Bank Governor Hafez Fakhir Meayad and his deputy Chakib Hobeishi have left Aden to attend these meetings as representatives of the legitimate government.

The bank sources said that the possibility of reopening the SWIFT system for foreign remittances to commercial banks in Sana'a could be discussed under considerable pressure from the United Nations after Yemen's central bank in Aden withdrew Swift from CAC Bank, Which is used instead of the Central Yemeni in Sana'a for the purpose of external communication with banks and international financial insitutions.

The Houthi-run "Saba" news agency reported that a delegation from the Central Bank of Yemen in Sana'a left Sunday evening to participate in an economic meeting in the Jordanian capital of Amman to discuss the implementation of the economic section of the Swedish agreement and in the introduction port revenues and payment of salaries of employees throughout the Republic.

Reports said on Sunday that an economic team including the governor of the Central Bank of Yemen appointed by the Houthis group, Dr. Mohammed al-Sayani, along with officials of a number of commercial banks, left Sana'a for the Jordanian capital Amman to participate in UN-sponsored meetings.

Recently, the Houthis group has intensified its pressure on the United Nations to force it to pressure the government to "stop" the measures taken by the Yemeni central bank in Aden, which has stifled the group and reduced its resources, according to observers and economic analysts.

Meanwhile, the Foreign minister of Houthis Hisham Sharaf Abdullah handed over the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Yemen, Lise Grande, a message to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the president of the current session of the UN Security Council on a number of what he called the "The excesses of the central bank branch in Aden, which aims to create financial problems and the continued suffering of Yemeni banks in the capital Sanaa and find more financial difficulties and crises in front of them.

A senior economic analyst told "Debriefer" in a previous statement: "The interruption of salaries of the majority of state employees in Yemen, more than two and a half years, specifically in the northern and western provinces, more than the effects of the war itself, because it affects the lives of more than seven to eight million Yemen, which doubled the poverty and famine, and the humanitarian disaster in the country. "

"The regrettable lack of any treatment or attention by the legitimate government or the authorities of the Huthis, where the parties to the conflict turned this paper to another economic tool to exchange accusations and war between them, but the biggest blame lies with the legitimate government that Act lightly with such a subject that affects the strength of the citizen and his family, and in a strange way that reflects the lack of national responsibility on its own. ",he added.

He said: "The most dangerous of these is that the legitimate government, which pays salaries of only 200,000 employees in its areas of control, compared to nearly one million civil servants in the areas of control of the Houthis have not received any salaries since the transfer of the Central Bank, resorted to printing money excessively and unnaturally amid The absence of any controls or accountability for spending, estimates indicate that it printed nearly two trillion riyals (equivalent to more than four billion dollars).

"And every time you want to pay salaries are reprinted in light of the inability to control revenues, which led to the loss of the local currency more than half of its value and inflation rates have increased unprecedented and all threaten serious economic problems more severe than the war itself.", he declared.


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