New government strategy to tackle poverty

from The Yemen Observer

Written By: Abdul-Aziz Oudah & Fares Anam

President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Tuesday ordered the government to give all state employees in the public and private sectors an additional month’s salary on the occasion of the coming month of Ramadan, in order to ease of the burden on citizens caused by recent price hikes. Yemen has recently seen an unprecedented increase in the prices of basic foodstuffs imported from foreign markets. Saleh also ordered that the government launch the second phase of the national strategy for wages and salaries, implementing it next October.

Hamoud Khaled al-Soufi, Minister of Civil Service and Insurance, said that the implementation of the second phase of the wages and salaries strategy that the president ordered would cost the state treasury nearly YR100 billion. “The increase for the second phase of the strategy will be paid in cash next October, as the president has identified,” said al-Soufi. Al-Soufi said that the creation of more than 900,000 jobs in the public sector and the rooting out of abuses such as moonlighting represented the most important achievements of the first phase.

“Also, we are trying to put the salary list in order and remove repeated names that already exist. We also discovered 72,000 cases where employees were either retired or had a job elsewhere,” he said. Al-Soufi said that the president’s order to grant an additional salary for all state employees to cope with the wave of global price increases is a wise and humane decision. “We believe that the dangers that we expected to face from price rises have been avoided by this preventive action brought by the president,” he said. He said that the president’s strategy would become clear to most Yemenis, and that the additional salary will be disbursed next week.


The resident also ordered the government, represented by the Ministries of Civil Service and Insurance, Interior and Defense, to begin the process of distributing new employment cards with fingerprint and image technology. The president’s directives were sent in a letter to the Council of Ministers, and include orders to establish housing projects in the governorates of Aden and Hodeidah, Taiz, Hadhramout and other cities with a high population density. The housing projects would solve the housing crisis for low-income families, provide an outlet for retirement funds, encourage domestic investment, and contribute to creating job opportunities, according to the letter.

The Council of Ministers approved that the prime minister and the government members implement the president’s initiative according to the financial disclosure law. The Joint Meeting Parties, a coalition of opposition parties, welcomed these plans “Any steps from the government in the context of finding solutions are welcome, because the purpose is to get rid of abuses in the relation between society and authority,” said Yassin Saeed Noaman, chairman of the Higher Committee of the Joint Meeting Parties.

Mohammed al-Sabri, the official spokesman of the Joint Meeting Parties, said, “we welcome any attempt to cure the imbalances and violations in the community and it must be real and serious, not just media and propaganda.”
However, more will need to be done, he said. “These procedures are inadequate and we will not stop the activities of the joint protest because these activities are within the annual work plan for the Joint Meeting Parties, and these actions are part of the demands of the people,” added al-Sabri.

The trade unions’ coordinating body announced in Taiz that it’s first reaction was to indefinitely postpone its protest against poverty, price increases, and other economic problems that was scheduled for Saturday, in recognition of the new resolutions of the government. These decisions were welcomed by a wide range of the people, particularly state employees. These employees expressed optimism about the positive effects that these decisions could have on their households’ life.

As a further part of the government’s strategy, the Anti-Corruption Authority had earlier approved plans to submit Members of Parliament to the financial disclosure law. Ali Abdallah Abu Haliqah, head of the Parliament’s Constitutional Committee, considered that all of these actions should be taken a sign of the president’s and the government’s serious intentions to reform economic imbalances, address the sudden price rises through the wages strategy, and fight corruption through forcing financial disclosure on members of the government.

Abu Haliqah called upon MPs to pass a financial disclosure bill, just as they passed laws establishing the Anti-Corruption authority body and the government. “These directives will calm people’s anger about rising prices because they were so upset, particular with the holy month of Ramadan coming soon,” said Faisal Abdullah, a government employee. “An addition salary will really help us, but we need to implement the second phase of the strategy of wages because there will be increase in my salary and it will cover the sudden prices raise,” Abdullah said.