Houthis destroying Yemeni economy by confiscating bank deposits

Aya Ezz

The Houthi militia is deliberately stealing Yemenis’ money and in all possible ways.

In the past days, the coup group threatened to confiscate more than $3 billion, which are the benefits of the internal debt, under the pretext of preventing usury in commercial transactions and loans.

This step will lead to the confiscation of the deposits of more than one million Yemenis, according to the law on preventing usury transactions issued by the Houthis.

Not to get their money back

The adoption of the new Houthi law threatens to rob depositors of their savings, on whose interests these depositors live.

The Houthis propose to develop what they called a long-term strategy to process the original debt amounts without profits.

This means that depositors have to wait many years to get their money back. They may not get it.

It is likely that the decision to issue a law to prevent usury transactions by the militia will lead to the loss of the money of about 1.2 million depositors.

Leaving the banks

The are four commercial banks in the Yemeni capital Sana’a that shut their doors during the past period, according to Yemeni media reports.

There are other commercial banks that will close down soon. The fate of the remaining other banks will be to close and declare bankruptcy, which will lead to the collapse of the Yemeni banking system.

In mid-February, the Yemeni government announced very large material losses due to banking violations committed by the Houthi group.

It said in a statement that the economy of Yemen has suffered heavy losses, estimated at about $1 billion due to recent Houthi attacks on oil ports.

Freezing of funds

During last February, the militia froze the amount of 1.7 trillion Yemeni riyals (about $3.3 billion), which is the total investments of commercial banks in government debt over the past years, according to a Yemeni government statement.

According to the government, the Houthis ordered the transfer of these funds to non-withdrawable current accounts, under the pretext of preventing usury in banks.

For his part, Yemeni economist Fahd al-Saifi said the central bank affiliated to the Houthis issued during the past period a decision to eliminate the sources of banks’ investments in government debt bonds.

“This means that the banks will declare bankruptcy in the near future,” he told The Reference.

Al-Saifi explained that the group, supported by Iran, took those funds to put them in the pockets of their leaders and kill the Yemeni people.