Disclosure of organized looting of judiciary’s budget with hundreds of billions for only one year

SMA NEWS – ADEN the Capital

The judiciary is considered the foundation of the state and the balance of its rule. If this balance is upset, the state will collapse and fall.

By the judiciary, the state is named and laws are enacted, violators are deterred and mistakes are corrected, but in Yemen the judiciary has another face tainted with corruption and dishonesty.

A special report on the results of the work of the Judicial and Legal Committee formed by the Southern Judges Club to examine and review aspects of spending and expenditure in the judiciary’s budget revealed organized looting and waste of public money from the highest judicial authority represented by the Supreme Judicial Council, the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice, and billions of withdrawals for the General Prosecutor, whose appointment decision is still suspended judicially.

The report submitted by the committee and presented at a press conference on Wednesday, by the committee members of judges, represented by Abu Bakr Abdi Ahmed Nour, Saleh Ahmed Faraj, Shawki Hadi Yaslam, Yasser Salem Alawi and Amr Abdel Karim Al-Amrawi, who announced to media professionals from newspapers, news agencies, and local and Arab channels, that the report included an examination and review of the spending and expenditures in the budget for the final account for the year 2019 only, given that the past years have not yet available any reports for the final accounts of the judiciary.

The numbers revealed by the Southern Judges Club, in the press conference, illustrate the state of great and unprecedented corruption in this institution.

Hereunder is a review of some huge figures for wasting public money and unnamed expenditures:

16164894560  riyals expenses of fuel, oils and spare parts, excluding those spent.

62104728153  riyals rewards without specifying those granted these rewards.

1093521425  riyals as hospitality for the Supreme Judicial Council and other expenses amounted to

9852092153  riyals

Internal transfers amounted to 2676197340 riyals

Attending conferences 16221840700 riyals

The rent of the residence of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is 24 thousand dollars per year, at 2000 dollars per month

An increase in the judiciary’s budget amounted to 54% for the year 2021, an amount of

64377074459  riyals, an increase over the year 2020, amounting to 29449578384 riyals, an increase of 34927496075 riyals.

Journalist Yasser Al-Yafei, commenting on the topic, and wrote on his Facebook page: “If corruption and tampering in the judiciary, what is left, where does the poor citizen go to complain, very large financial figures that have been wasted and tampered within the judicial authority.

He added: “The Southern Judges Club summed up the absurdity and exposed it, and the question is who will hold the corrupt and waste of public money accountable”.

“3 billion withdrawn from unclassified expenses, all of which are from the Central Bank of Aden, other than the amounts mentioned previously” Al-Yafei said.

He continued: “The chief of the Supreme Court withdrew 220 million riyals as reconstruction expenses, and it was discovered that the Prime Minister paid the money for it, and the amount withdrawn by the chief of the Supreme Court was lost.

He said that the chief of the Supreme Court sent a car that went to Sana’a, worth 66 million riyals, which he sent to his son, who works with Al-Houthi.

Observers described this corruption and wasting of public money in this way as a crime that deserves investigation and punishment.

Observers wondered: “If this is the case of the judiciary, how about the rest of the authorities?”

The Southern Judges Club is working to correct the path of the judiciary, which, in the era of legitimacy, which was controlled by the Brotherhood, turned into a tool for political blackmail and a hotbed of corruption that the country has not witnessed before.

The Southern Judges Club, in previous reports, also accused the judiciary of disrupting the judiciary and the work of courts in the capital, Aden, and the governorates of the South, in order to create more chaos, increase crime rates, and disrupt public life to achieve political goals.

Specialists called for a transparent investigation and for those accused of wasting public money to be held accountable, and to know where and how this money was spent.

They also called on all media, human rights organizations, and public opinion to pressure, to hold accountable those found guilty of tampering with public money.

Speakers from the media, journalists and writers on economic and financial affairs considered that what was mentioned in the committee’s report are criminal offenses for which the law will be held accountable, and there is no immunity for corruption. However, they stressed that this report will be submitted to the President of the Republic to take measures through the bodies authorized to monitor and hold accountable.