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YEMEN-ECONOMY-BUDGET-SAUDI
Yemen government announces budget after three-year hiatus
ADEN, Jan 22, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Yemen’s cash-strapped government on Sunday
released its first official budget since the Huthi rebels overran the capital
Sanaa in 2014 and following a bailout from ally Saudi Arabia.
Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher said spending in the 2018 budget is
projected at 1.5 trillion Yemeni riyals ($3.9 billion), with revenues
estimated at 978 billion riyals ($2.6 billion).
The Aden-based government projected a deficit of $1.3 billion, based on
the official exchange rate of 380 riyals to the dollar — higher than the
market rate of about 450 riyals to the dollar.
In a post on Facebook, the prime minister painted a devastating picture of
the country’s economy, saying that oil and gas production — the main source
of revenue before the war — had ground to a halt and that $5 billion in
foreign reserves and stocks of the local currency had been “looted” by rebels
who maintain a separate central bank in Sanaa.
Bin Dagher did not offer details on revenue sources for the budget but it
comes on the heels of a massive bailout by Saudi Arabia, the main backer of
the internationally recognised government.
The prime minister vowed “optimal use” of Saudi Arabia’s $2 billion
deposit to the central bank, which has buoyed the local currency in recent
days, and said the new “austerity budget” would nonetheless guarantee wages
for civil servants and the military.
Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition that intervened in Yemen in March
2015 with the stated aim of rolling back Huthi rebel gains and restoring the
country’s “legitimate” government to power.
More than one million civil servants lost their jobs in 2016, when
President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi moved the central bank from rebel-held Sanaa
to Aden.
For more than a year, the government has been unable to pay salaries and
the riyal dropped sharply against the dollar, leaving Yemenis unable to
afford food staples and bottled water.
The Yemen conflict has left more than three-quarters of the population in
need of humanitarian aid and 8.4 million at risk of famine, according to the
United Nations.
BSS/AFP/HR/0955