The World Bank exposes the Houthis: 225 thousand employees in their areas
English - Saturday 06 August 2022 الساعة 03:17 pm
Sana'a, NewsYemen, private:
A new World Bank report confirmed that the total number of civil servants in the Houthi militia-controlled areas is 225,000 and their salaries were not paid regularly, and this situation still exists.
The monthly salary bill for the total civil servants in the Houthi militia-controlled areas amounts to a maximum of 100,000 riyals per month for each employee 22 billion and 500 million riyals, while the militia’s revenues exceed two trillion riyals annually.
According to the World Bank report, the Yemen Economic Monitor, the Houthi militia irregularly paid half of the salaries to civil servants in its areas of control between 2017 and 2020, a total of 20 payments equivalent to 10 months of salaries.
The report said that in 2019, the internationally recognized government also paid the salaries of 50,000 civil servants in the Houthi areas, but this initiative stopped as soon as the value of the riyal began to vary greatly between the two regions.
The Houthi militia controls Sanaa, along with the main economic center in the country and its existing institutions, and has become more effective in taxing goods and companies, and profiting from sales of oil and gas that are transported to its areas.
Besides controlling internal trade, imposing a series of illegal levies and confiscating private funds, UN agencies alone provide $370 million annually to militia-controlled government institutions in Sanaa, without monitoring how they are spent.
The World Bank report indicated that 250,000 employees in government-controlled areas have been receiving salaries since early 2017, after the Houthi militia suspended the payment of salaries to civil servants in mid-2016.
The public sector in Yemen is the largest employer in the country. Before the outbreak of the war, the public sector employed more than 1.2 million people—40% of whom were civilians—and supported millions of members of their families.
In 2014, the total public sector wage bill amounted to 977 billion riyals, equivalent to about $4.5 billion billion dollars, representing 42% of revenues or 10% of GDP.
Apart from the military, the education and health sectors accounted for the largest share of government jobs, as it is estimated that there are about 350,000 government employees in the education and health sectors, which is equivalent to approximately 70% of the public sector salaries.
