Yemen Monitor/ Sana’a/ Exclusive:
The Houthi government (not internationally recognized) has submitted a draft law to pay the salaries of government employees, but members of the parliament controlled by the group informed “Yemen Monitor” that the draft is laughable and does not pay the salaries of employees and increases taxes.
The Houthi-affiliated parliament, which is not internationally recognized, announced that it had received an explanatory memorandum for a draft law from the government regarding the exceptional temporary mechanism to support the state employees’ payroll and solve the problem of small depositors.
The draft law contained 19 articles distributed over four chapters: the first chapter: name, definitions, and objectives, the second chapter included sources of funding, the third chapter included the aspects and mechanism of disbursement from the exceptional mechanism account, while the fourth chapter included general and final provisions.
According to three members of parliament who contacted “Yemen Monitor” and preferred not to be named for fear of Houthi retaliation, the mechanism they were briefed on indicates paying half a salary every three months, in exchange for a significant increase in fees for providing social services.
This means, according to the members of the council, increasing levies on government services such as fees for health institutions, communications, and government fees that increase taxes and customs in areas controlled by the group, which increases the suffering of citizens.
One of the members said, “The draft law is a farce, the situation is bad for all citizens and hunger is spreading, and they want to build new levies that increase prices and inflation, which has already reached record levels and led to a recession in all markets.”
He added: “There is no intention to solve the problem of employees’ salaries, and it seems this government is only concerned with levies and supporting war efforts.”
The mechanism refers to the use of the teachers’ fund for government expenditures in order to achieve what it called justice among the segments of employees in various government agencies. This comes as anger has increased among teachers in areas under their control, with the Houthis collecting billions of riyals from the fund monthly as they impose a tariff on communications, electricity, and many commercial services in favor of the fund, but the Houthis do not pay salaries.
