Yemen FM: IMF loan to Saudi-backed govt. only prolongs aggression

Yemen’s foreign minister has denounced a decision by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to grant a $650-million loan to Yemen’s former Saudi-backed regime, warning that the financial aid only serves to prolong the years-long war on the impoverished country.

The foreign minister in the Yemeni National Salvation Government, Hisham Sharaf Abdullah, made the remarks in a formal protest letter to the IMF’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Monday.

Abdullah said despite the justifications and motives of the IMF, given the financial and administrative corruption of the previous government and the central bank in Aden, it is evident that this loan would not be spent for humanitarian purposes, but would only serve to prolong the aggression.

The southern port city of Aden serves as the de facto capital of the former regime, led by ex-president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, whose Saudi-backed militia groups fight against the Yemeni army and allied fighters from the popular committees.

Abdullah further held the IMF fully responsible for any consequences and repercussions of granting the loan, saying a sizable portion of it would undoubtedly be deposited in certain accounts and spent by the Saudi-backed regime through a corrupt process.

Yemen’s top diplomat also stressed that the country’s National Salvation Government and any other future government would not accept the responsibility or consequences of lending such a loan to a regime mired in corruption.

Abdullah also said the IMF’s managing board would be the one to be blamed and held accountable for the misuse of those funds.

On August 24, Hadi’s regime announced receiving $665 million as the allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) from the IMF.

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Separately on Monday, the undersecretary of Yemen’s ministry of finance, Ahmed Hajar, said the IMF had lost its credibility since it dealt with the Yemenis through a political agenda.

“If the IMF is serious in paying loans to the Yemeni people, it should not allow the mercenary government [of Hadi] to have access to the loans,” Hajar said, stressing that the relocation of the country’s central bank from capital Sana’a to Aden was only meant to put pressure on Yemenis.

Yemen has been the target of a military campaign led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the US since early 2015. The war — which has unsuccessfully sought to reinstall Hadi in Sana’a — has left hundreds of thousands of Yemenis dead and displaced millions more.

The campaign has also destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure and brought about the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis” in the country, according to the United Nations.

Defending their country against the Saudi-led aggression, Yemeni armed forces and allied Popular Committees have, however, gone from strength to strength against the Saudi-led invaders, and left Riyadh and its allies bogged down in the country.

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