Aden between the hammer of hot summer and the anvil of crisis chaos
English - Wednesday 12 July 2023 الساعة 09:58 am
Aden, NewsYemen, Exclusive:
The number of crises in the capital, Aden, has swelled through several files, the first of which is electricity and the collapse of the currency, in addition to recently poor fuel provided by the government, which caused severe breakdowns in power stations and citizens’ vehicles. All of this and more has put people’s trust in the Presidency Council to the test.
The state of chaos exacerbated amid government indifference, whose repercussions increased on the deteriorating economic and service conditions in the liberated areas, which citizens and analysts considered due to the failure and corruption of government policies.
Hot summer
Despite all government promises of a cold summer for the capital, the hot summer series was repeated every year amid the increasing number of hours of electricity shutdowns, and it recently concluded by hitting power stations with poor fuel, which exacerbated the suffering of citizens with the high temperature in Aden.
The confusion of the government and officials and the exchange of accusations have become a matter that does not concern the citizen who wants the least of his lost rights in terms of electricity, water and fuel.
Popular demands and politicians launched campaigns in which they called for the investigation and dismissal of the Prime Minister, Moeen Abdel-Malek, who supervised this file, which was met by the silence of the Presidential Council.
Adulterated fuel
The power stations were not the first victim of the poor fuel provided by the government. Citizens complained years ago that their engines, cars, and transport buses were shut down because of adulterated fuel that swept the market in 2019, which ended with an exchange of accusations between the refinery company and the oil company. Citizens' complaints still exist until this moment.
The oil company disavowed the bad derivatives by saying that its tasks are to receive and store imported oil only. For its part, Aden refineries claimed that they examine the derivatives through strict laws before allowing them to be sold, as there is an integrated system for this purpose. Between this and that, the citizens suffered heavy losses in their vehicles, to the extent that some wanted to file a lawsuit against the oil company, including the journalist Abdul Rahman Anis.
Analysts attributed that the batch of adulterated fuel in 2022 was imported from Marib at low prices and sold at a high price in the capital. It is a corruption deal in which those responsible for it participate in order to reap dozens of times more money from the back of the citizen and incur heavy losses.
The economy is at the bottom of collapse
For his part, the Yemeni riyal fell to new record levels, as it recorded 380 for the Saudi riyal, and 1435 for one dollar, which led to an increase in the prices of food commodities and vegetables amid a difficult living situation for the pocket and the citizen’s limited income for an average salary of 40 dollars.
No convincing justifications emerged for the rise in foreign currency prices that occurred in the liberated areas, amid the silence of Aden, which recently received Emirati-Saudi support, which was supposed to support the Yemeni riyal and improve its levels.
