By: Jalal Al-Sharaabi
Yemen Times

The economic conditions of the Yemeni people are passing from pillar to post with the passage of time. One would easily notice that the number of people below the poverty line has also increased dramatically. Unemployment is a terrible nightmare, paining many people. It has come to be in direct correlation to economic reforms.
Each year we witness a new list of food supplies prices having changed from the previous one made the year before. Naturally, the new list is different from the previous in terms of increasing the prices of these basic goods. Despite unrestrained attempts to retrieve the situation in terms of treasury bonds and privatization, these efforts have failed and could not stop the deteriorating tendency of our currency.

Smuggling huge budgets for the military bodies, the officials indifference, in addition to the non-existant control over the public property, are all monsters continuously frightening the Yemeni people, especially in the current crisis at the regional level, in which economy is the severest weapon ever used against Yemen.

Not only this, for our currency has also fallen against the Dollar and this has brought about a decrease in the real wages of employees. The basic food supplies prices have also risen, especially after the government removed the subsidization. The government should have dedicated the money of subsidizing these goods to investment. And though there has been a large increase in oil prices and an increased number of the newly discovered oil fields, the revenues of all these still have a mysterious destination.

Generally speaking, the Yemeni markets suffer from a terrible hoarding of goods, most of which have already expired and others are about to and are suspected to be convenient for the humanly use. One of the main factors that help increase the spread of these goods is the non-existence of health control that should be conducted at boarder check points as well as sea ports.
The General Budget for 2000 showed that the government is going on in its policy of allocating new funds for security and the military at the expense of education, health, and development.

Statistics of the past five years show that there is an increase in the ratio of current revenues, including taxes, Zakah, charges on external trade, services revenues such as agricultural revenues, houses, transportation, social services, services of justice, security, education, health, media, tourism, culture, and that of the government's benefit from minerals and industry overall benefits. Despite all that, economic conditions remain as deplorable as one could imagine. The Yemeni citizen remains a victim to these economic reforms, which reform nothing but destroy everything.

The returnees from the Gulf countries during the Gulf War in 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, and the Yemeni government and people taking sides with Iraq has caused the Saudi government to drive away the Yemeni employees working there and led to an increasingly heavy burden that tires the shoulders of the Yemeni government. Besides these economic hardships the monetary liquidity used to be available by those emigrants has come to an end. After their return, the prices of basic food supplies for 1997 and 98 tended to increase visibly. Prices were different from one governorate to another for example, a box of fruits weighing 17kg used to cost YR 1950 in 1997 at Ma'areb. However, in 1998 it has gone up to YR 2150. The same thing was applicable to all types of fruits. Differences of prices were dominating among the governorates, for a ton of iron 12ml used to cost YR 41750 in 1998 at Hadramout while it reached to YR 45227 at Abian in the same year.

The continuous rise in prices of oil products and mineral articles is another burden that the Yemeni citizen have had to encounter and accommodate with an increase of prices of essential food supplies such as flour and wheat.
The Yemeni government has many times declared through its Prime Minister and Minister of exterior affairs that economic conditions are in a tight situation and that there is a deficit reaching billions of riyals, asking the people to follow austerity measures. Moreover, the government went on in its attempts to solve this crisis and stopped importing white wheat because red wheat is cheaper. However, despite all this, year 1999 witnessed a terrible drop of our currency and the sack of flour has run from YR1400 to YR1700. The Yemeni authorities have determined to stop the continuous rise of the Dollar at the expense of the Yemeni Riyal, so it tried all that it could to stop the price of Dollar at YR160, however, the price has not stopped and reached YR170. The Central Bank justified this by saying that this was a result of some exchangers' and merchants' behavior who play with these prices.

Economists show that these are not the real solutions for there are intermingling factors and reasons that brought about this crisis. They also asserted that there are some ministers and high ranking officials who possess huge funds and other money, they get out off some projects they purchase, tend to invest their fortunes in speculative projects with dollars.

They added that the reasons that have aggravated the situation are the government's procedures conducted to free the basic goods out of its control. The government has lifted its subsidization that used to reach to $ 500 million. This has caused many merchants to compete to get Dollars so that they can import these basic food supplies, consequently adding insult to injury.
The Central Bank's in a face-saving action to save the position of the Yemeni riyal by having put $10 million into circulation, the market had also come through. For it was soon used for speculation rather than supporting the monetary market.

Uncertain sources reveal that regional countries are also involved in leading the Yemeni economy to this deplorable position in involving some of its agents in speculation by withdrawing dollars from the local market and supplying more Yemeni currency.
All these factors have made prices of goods unstable and on the increase. A lot of revenue that should come to the public treasury come to be wasted and exploited by different, mysterious sources. For example, statistics show that due to smuggling operations the government lost YR70 billion during 1999.

The Yemeni market has been dominated by different imported goods most of which being illegally brought into the country, reaching to more than 120 items of goods during Ramadan. Besides, some are not suitable for the human use as testing revealed.
A law was passed this year by the Cabinet to increase the cleaning charges on business shops and general services by 200% which has obviously increased the suffering and the agony of citizens who have become a bearer of these aggressive laws.

The Yemeni people have still been optimistic that economic conditions in 2000 will improve as the government has promised at different times that the budget of service facilities will be increased. However, the budget draft of the government for 2000 crushed all their hopes and astounded those optimists, for the draft presented to the Parliament contained a number of fallacies and distorted facts aiming at cheating the members of Parliament. The budget also contained an increase in expenditure reaching to about YR 80 billion more than that of 1999. Security and Defense have taken 25% of this increase. Statistics show that this article has increased at a ratio of 109%, therefore security and defense will take YR14 billion and 68 million. However, the share of the Interior Ministry is around YR 2 billion and 736 million and the Political security with YR1 billion. In regard to oil revenues, the budget draft includes mysterious numbers either in terms of the real quantities or monetary figures, besides, the playing with the prices of selling the exported oil or that used locally. Moreover, the revenues of oil sold at the colanders in Aden for the new budget is also unknown though its quantity in budget 1999 was around 25,550,000 barrels.

The Yemeni government has also suffered from heavy losses as a result of 30 bombing incidents of the pipelines.
All these obstacles stay in the face of the Yemeni economy and make any attempts to retrieve the situation fruitless and worthless unless a clear monetary policy takes into account the real income of the Yemeni citizen and the cost of his living upon a healthy strategic economy.

To conclude, it is a fact that all, especially those in charge, should confess that most of the revenues of the Yemeni government are spent illegally and go to mysterious destinations where there is no official control. Besides there is no sense of consciousness among some top and influential officials. Therefore, it lies upon the government to save the national economy from destruction and from the total dependence on the economic reforms of the International and World Banks' Funds which proved failure in most of the countries where these programs were applied to the destruction of the country itself.

By: Dr. Mohammed Y.
Al-Ghashm

A big celebration was conducted on Monday December 6th 1999 at the General Department of Plant Protection (GDPP) on the occasion of winning the International prize (Edward Saouma Award) for the years 98-99, which was given to Yemen as well as another country. Usually FAO grants this award every two years for the implementation of the protects of the technical cooperation program (TCP), which maintain the resources of production and protecting the environment from pesticides and other human activities.

This year the General Department of Plant Protection in the Ministry of Agriculture in Yemen won the prize for the good results in controlling the BROWN PEACH STEM APHID (BPSA) by using new bid-control approaches (parasite agents). This new method help to reduce the quantities of pesticides used in the campaign against this pest from 22 tons in 1995 to 25 tons in 1998 and protected around 6 million of stone and pome trees. Around two hundred thousands families of farmers (about one million people) depend on their income from the yield of stone and pome fruit trees.

The prize consist of silver medal, with the abbreviation of the General Department of Plant Protection (GDPP) in the ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MAI) in Yemen 1999 written on its face. On the other face are FAO abbreviations and a phrase written in Spanish, French and English languages: "For serving humanity." The GDPP also received a certificate saying the following.
"To the staff of the plant protection department of the ministry of agriculture and irrigation, in recognition of their dedication and enthusiasm in implementing with particular efficiency a project funded by the technical cooperation program of FAO for emergency assistance for control of aphids."
Additionally, a check of US$ 12,000 has been issued in the name of Yemen Plant Protection.

During the celebration, the Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation distributed the certificates of Gratitude to the staff of the GDPP for their successful campaign for control of the aphid, as well as to ambassadors of Germany, Japan and Holland and some other local and foreign institution for their kind support and participation on the successful control of the BPSA.
Due to the excellent support for development of the infrastructure of the GDPP during the last 20 years (1974 - 1994), this was done during the implementation of the Yemen-German Plant Protection project. The German embassy received a certificate from the Minister of Agriculture for establishing several types of laboratories (for identification of insects and diseases, pesticide formulation analysis and quality etc.) and some other plant protection utilities, qualifying a tenth of the GDPP staff in different levels during the life span of the project. During that period, the German and Yemeni experts conducted surveys for agricultural pests and the natural enemies available in the local environment. In addition to that they also conduct several studies, experiments and trials in searching for solutions to the main plant protection problems, as well as for their contribution on cleaning up obsolete pesticides from the country in 1996.

They also expressed their gratitude to the Japanese embassy for their kind and far-reaching assistance, which began in 1979. Japanese aid comes under the 2KR, which aims to increase food protection in Yemen. The average value of the annual Japanese aid reached 500 million J. Yen, this amount was allocated for purchasing of equipment, chemicals and fertilizers. The Japanese aid was used to control the desert locust and African armyworm and other migratory pests which threaten the cereal crops as well as the potato and legume harvests. Therefore, we can indicate that most of the agricultural offices in different governorates have purchased a tenth of their equipment with the Japanese grant aid.
The heavy-duty construction equipment is used to maintain wadis, terraces cultivated lands, irrigation channels, while the light equipment such as agricultural machinery are using for leveling, ploughing land and planting, harvesting, sorting and controlling pests by using different types of sprays. The volume of the Japanese aid was and still is playing a significant and efficient role in the field of increasing food production in Yemen.

Due to all this effective assistance, MAI provided this certificate to H.E. Ambassador of Japan. For the FRIENDLY GOVERNMENT OF JAPAN that continues to support MAI under the development grant aid assistance and the "INCREASE FOOD PRODUCTION PROJECT."H.E. the ambassador of the Netherlands also received a certificate for their contribution and support in the campaign against BPSA and in supporting the training program for the extensions and farmers.
These training programs were for the new Bio-Control approaches, which reduce the chemicals and help maintain environmental health, in addition to their main contribution in funding the cleaning up of obsolete pesticides in the country during 1996. The certificate was also, for the participation in the preparation and funding of the new integrated pest management (IPM) project, which is expecting to be implemented during the year 2000. The IPM project is expected to achieve the following:
* Integration of IPM research into the national agricultural research system in the Republic of Yemen
* IPM options will be developed and validated for vegetables and fruit trees in the central highlands and for cotton and vegetables in Tehama plains.
* Eighty extension staff will have completed season long formal education methods, and gained program management skills.
* Farmer facilitated field schools will have been established in 350 sites.
* About 1200 field schools will have been implemented providing season-long IPM training to approximately 20,000 farmers.
* Participatory IPM research and extensions will have started for other crops such as cereals and lowland tropical crops.
* Improved knowledge by growers on IPM strategies for vegetable, fruit trees and cotton, and proper application methods.
* Increase public awareness of health hazards of pesticides.

FAO office also got a certificate for the efforts made to assist and support the aphid campaign, which resulted in establishing a bio-control unit at the GDPP. The certificate was also given due to the good supervision for the activities carried out during implementation of old projects and for the unlimited support for the desert locust and other migratory pest campaigns.
In the celebration, different local and foreign institutions got certificates of gratefulness for their support and participation for the plant protection activities, through building up the awareness of farmers by conducting training courses, field days and broadcasting the extension information.

Therefore, we feel that the gaining of this prize from FAO is very important, not only for the staff of the GDPP but for all Yemeni cadres at different institutions in the country. The decision, which was made in the meeting conducted on 12th November 1999 by the staff of the GDPP, was that the amount received from the prize should be used for strengthen the infrastructure of the GDPP. It reflects, without any doubt, their love to the country.
The GDPP staff understood that winning the prize put a heavy load on them, and therefore, they should continue their efforts in the future for increasing the protection, improving the quality of their work and protecting the environment. This will be undertaken through controlling the dangerous pests.