UAE loots Yemeni funds belonging to legitimate government once again to support its militias
The UAE continues its plots to undermine the legitimate government in Yemen, carrying out organized operations to loot Yemeni government money to fund its armed militias to spread chaos and sabotage in the country.
The Undersecretary of the Yemeni Ministry of Information, Muhammad Qizan, said on Twitter that UAE forces have forcibly seized five financial containers belonging to the Yemeni government in Hadhramaut Governorate, in the east of the country.
Qizan said that Emirati forces at Al Rayyan Airport stormed the port of Mukalla (the capital of Hadhramaut), and loaded and looted five containers of state funds printed in Russia. He did not without mentioning the sum of the funds.
For years, the local Yemeni currency (riyal) has been widely printed in Russia and transported by sea to Yemen. Last Saturday, elements loyal to the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council carried out a protest in Mukalla, to demand the confiscation of the said funds and not to allow the Yemeni government to use them.
Tensions between the government and the Transitional Council increased after the latter’s announcement, on April 26, of self-administration in the southern governorates, and his forces controlling the governorate of Socotra on June 19.
In November 2019, the government and the Transitional Council signed an agreement in Riyadh to solve problems between the two sides after the latter’s seizure of Aden, but it did not succeed in ending the crisis.
Last May, the militias of the Transitional Council, backed by the United Arab Emirates, stole ten and a half billion Yemeni riyals from the Central Bank of Yemen, at gunpoint.
At the time, the financial department of the Central Bank stated, in a statement, that the leader of the Transitional Council called Qasim Al-Thobani was presented to the bank last Wednesday with a number of military crews carrying written instructions from the “leadership of the Council” that included an order to spend ten and a half billion riyals as salaries to Aden security and the southern resistance brigades.
The Finance Department indicated that it had indicated to Al-Thobani that it is not possible, according to the accounting and documentary law of the Central Bank, to exchange such an amount for a person who does not have any legal capacity, besides that the salaries of the Aden Security Department do not exceed half a billion riyals and are disbursed regularly while there is no provision for the adoption of resistance brigades Southern in Dhali, a waterfall common.
Al-Thobani rejected the bank’s financial department’s response, threatening to use armed force against the central bank and its management, which forced it to spend ten and a half billion at gunpoint.
The financial department of the bank said that the exchange of ten and a half billion occurred illegally, considering its statement as a disclaimer.
The management of the Central Bank of Yemen confirmed that what happened threatens to completely stop the activity of the Central Bank, especially that the exchange process was paid from the general cash reserves and not from the private revenues in the bank.
She indicated that stopping the collection of revenue to the Central Bank of Yemen could undermine the bank’s activity and threaten the collapse of the local currency.
