Yemen’s Hadi accuses Houthi militants of confiscating wealth

Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi said coup militias control about 70 percent of the war-torn country’s national income resources, such as taxes and revenues of companies and public factories and yet demand the government to pay salaries of state employees in the provinces under their control.
Iran-aligned Houthis along with loyalists backing deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh overran Yemen’s capital in 2014 in an armed insurgency aiming to overthrow the constitutionally elected government.
Speaking to UN special envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Hadi reviewed the option concerning handing over the port of Hodeidah to a neutral party under the supervision of the United Nations. He confirmed his government’s approval, however, said that coup militias continued to snub the proposal.
Speaking in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Hadi also told the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya channel that a plan to hand over control of the country’s main port to a neutral party remained blocked by the Houthis and their ally Saleh.
“The military solution is the more likely one for the Yemen crisis in light of the intransigence of the Houthi and Saleh coup militias which continue to take orders from Iran,” Hadi said in the interview, according to a text provided by the Yemeni state-run Saba news agency.
President Hadi also told Al Arabiya according to Saba news agency that coup militias rejected the plan because of the size of incoming financial revenues related to the port. All of which are taken by the militias and used to finance their military operations against civilians in the provinces.
“Despite that, the legitimate government continues to extend its hand for peace because it is responsible for the Yemeni people and for lifting the suffering from it,” he added.
He pointed out that the militias also rejected a proposal to supply Revenues of the port to the branch of the Central Bank of Yemen in Hodeidah.
President Hadi said the guerrillas had looted public money and withdrew nearly $ 5 billion from the Central Bank of Yemen in Sana’a.
This prompted the legitimate government to take the decision to move the Central Bank of Yemen to the interim capital of Aden. He added that the legitimate government, despite its limited potential, was able to pay salaries of employees in the liberated provinces.
On that note, in his UN General Assembly address, Hadi accused former US President Barack Obama of turning a blind eye to what he described as Iranian expansion that allowed the Houthis to seize the Yemeni capital Sanaa as he was only preoccupied with the success of nuclear talks with Tehran.
“But the position under the current administration is better because it stands on the basis that there should be pressure on the Houthis and Iran so their expansion in the region would stop.”
Hadi said the Houthis still had a chance to join the political process if they agreed to hand over weapons and formed a party to help pursue national reconciliation. The Houthis say they are willing to hand over their weapons to a national unity government formed to represent the whole country.