The Yemeni government expressed its reservations over a recent report published by a team of experts from the UN Security Council that accused the Yemen Central Bank of “laundering money.”
Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik, at a press conference in Aden, told reporters that the government has always maintained transparency.
“The government’s principle is absolute transparency,” he asserted.
Noting that the methodology for the report was wrong, Abdulmalik said he was astonished at how the policy for supporting basic goods in a country suffering from a humanitarian crisis was slammed as a destructive strategy.
He said that food security was at risk in 2018, which had prompted Saudi Arabia to deposit $2 billion into the central bank in Aden as direct aid to the war-torn country.
“The Saudi deposit has greatly alleviated the humanitarian crisis,” stressed Abdulmalik, adding that it had a great impact on stabilizing prices of basic goods and prevented the further depreciation of the Yemeni rial for two years.
He went on to confirm that subsidizing basic goods is a long-standing policy of the Yemen Central Bank and that it is a method adopted by many governments when faced with a disruption in exchange rates.
The priority is to provide hard currency for food and medicine, he explained.
Reaffirming that the Saudi deposit was made through extensive and long procedures, Abdulmalik said that if there was indeed a mistake, responsible parties or individuals will be held accountable.
“Whole institutions must not be accused,” the prime minister noted in his defense of the central bank.
In its report last week to the UN Security Council, the Panel of Experts on Yemen found that the central bank had helped a group of Yemeni traders make $423 million in profits from “a sophisticated money-laundering scheme of the Saudi deposit” and manipulating foreign exchange rules.
The central bank, for its part, has officially dismissed the accusations.
It stated that the report was based on “misleading claims and information” propagated by “enemies of Yemen.”
