by NewsDesk, published in The Cradle, August 31, 2021
The Foreign Minister of Yemen’s National Salvation Government (NSG) condemned the decision by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on 30 August to disburse $665 million worth of emergency reserves to the Saudi-backed parallel administration led by ousted President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.
In a letter addressed to the IMF Managing Director, Yemen’s Foreign Minister Hisham Sharaf Abdullah held the institution “fully responsible for any consequences and repercussions” of this decision, adding that the money was likely to be laundered and spent by corrupt Saudi-backed authorities.
Abdullah also said that, given the far-reaching corruption of the ousted government, it is clear that the emergency reserves will not be spent on humanitarian purposes and will likely spur more violence in the country.
The undersecretary of Yemen’s Finance Ministry also spoke against the move by the IMF, saying “if the IMF is serious about [disbursing the reserves] to the Yemeni people, it should not allow the mercenary government [in Aden] to have access to the funds.”
Ahmed Hajar said the IMF lost any credibility it had the moment it decided to deal with Yemen through its political agenda.
Since 2015, Yemen has been mired in a brutal war started by Saudi Arabia and a coalition of NATO allies, who wanted to halt the advances of the Ansarallah movement after ousting western-friendly President Hadi. The violence has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, displaced millions of Yemenis and pushed the country to the brink of famine.
*Featured Image: The IMF Board of Governors meeting gets underway in 2017. Stephen Jaffe/IMF
The Cradle is a new Middle East blog edited by Sharmine Narwani. Journalist, West Asian geopolitics; Frmr Senior Associate, St Antony’s College, Oxford Univ, Columnist @TheCradleMedia