Yemeni fuel crisis is besieging Yemenis again .. Who is behind it?

Mohammed Abdul Malik - Al Jazeera Net

For more than 17 hours, Yemeni citizen Ahmed Abdullah has been parked in a long line at a petrol station in the center of the capital Sanaa, where the crisis of lack of oil derivatives - and some other Yemeni cities - has been on the rise for more than four weeks.

It is not only Ahmed who was affected by this crisis and lost his job (commercial truck driver), but it is threatening all sectors with total paralysis, especially the industrial and agricultural sector as well as drug stores, hospitals, shops, laboratories and bakeries, most of which stopped and many workers became unemployed .

Aggravation of suffering
According to Yemeni statistics issued by the Houthi Chamber of Commerce in Sana'a, more than 350 factories stopped working due to the crisis, and more than 980 thousand workers lost their livelihoods.

The crisis did not stop there, according to an official at the Chamber of Commerce talked to Al Jazeera Net, but exceeded it far and reflected on the lives of citizens, especially patients with kidney failure who require continuous dialysis operations, which led the Ministry of Health in Sanaa to say that there is more More than 500 hospitals and health units are threatened with suspension due to the derivatives crisis.

Some owners of power generators in Sana'a started to raise electricity prices for consumers for the same reasons.According to an official at the Yemeni Consumer Protection Association for Al-Jazeera Net, the price of one kilowatt reached 400 Yemeni riyals, which is a miraculous amount for the owners of factories and bakeries that are still open to consumers. Even for drug stores and food preservation operations need constant cooling.

Farmers are also the hardest hit by the lack of oil derivatives. Many of them find it very difficult to transport their goods or even irrigate their crops after the pumps are stopped. This crisis has resulted in a dramatic rise in the prices of vegetables and fruits.

The Yemeni oil company, which belongs to the Houthis, accuses the Saudi-UAE alliance of detaining oil derivatives ships and preventing them from entering Hodeidah port. It also said in a statement published by the agency "Saba" of the Houthis that these practices a new type of siege on citizens.

The Houthi authorities have issued an urgent appeal to the United Nations in view of such issues with impartiality and not to drag the Yemeni economy and people's lives into any political repercussions, demanding at the same time to accelerate the opening of ports and airports and lift the siege on oil derivatives ships and allow entry.

On the other hand, the Yemeni legitimate government announced that it agreed to allow the entry of ten ships loaded with oil derivatives said that the Houthi group had blocked its entry to Hodeidah port, according to Saba.net.

Causes and repercussions
The Yemeni economic researcher Hossam al-Saidi is the main reason for the crisis of oil derivatives due to the intransigence of the Houthi group at the expense of the interests of citizens, as the group refuses to give up its most important resources in the trade of oil derivatives controlled by Houthi leaders, and is trying to import for Iranian oil shipments.

The reasons for the failure of the decisions taken by the legitimate government with respect to the monopoly of oil imports, and the existence of duplication between the competent government authorities and the Economic Commission, as well as the government's inability to intervene effectively on the ground in many liberated areas, as well as the security situation In the southern part of the country.

But economic researcher Abdul Wahed al-Oubli attributed the actual causes of this crisis also to the problem of permits for the anchoring of oil ships in Hodeidah and any port of Yemen, which is only with the approval signed and sealed by the Office of the President, where the date is then sent to the coalition command to allow ships to dock In the ports.

He claims that most of those who control the office of the presidency since the beginning of the war in Yemen receive their commissions from the sales and revenues of oil on the go, and including coordination and continuous communication with the Houthis.

What the government should do, rather than increase the suffering of citizens under the pretext of collecting fees of only a few tens of millions at best, is to intensify its efforts to regain its sovereignty from the Saudi-UAE alliance, restart the stalled oil fields, and resume oil, gas and liquefied exports, Stop the looting and the continuous smuggling of crude oil.

Economists confirm that the catastrophic effects of this crisis will be reflected on the humanitarian conditions described by the United Nations as the worst in history and may contribute to the high rate of economic inflation and increase the cost of living, as well as the disruption of many daily projects and entrepreneurship, as well as create almost complete paralysis in most economic activities Remaining.

As usual, and in conjunction with the crisis of derivatives, the black markets spread in Sana'a, where some influential and traders took the opportunity to trade and sell their oil derivatives stored, and the price of 20 liters of gasoline to more than $ 30.