16 / 11 / 2022
" Al-Hajj Abdo Bilal Ahmad describes his ordeal in these words, “I didn’t know that this war was going to turn my life upside down.” Air raids on the border areas displaced Ahmad from Al-Malaheez in Sa’dah in northern Yemen, which is under Al- Houthi group control, and he relocated to Al-Zahra district in Al-Hudaydah governorate on the Red Sea.
Ahmad was displaced along with his family, “my wife, children and I walked from one village to another for three days. I moved from one camp to another until we settled here,” He says.
Ahmad with his five children are living in the open, after failing to obtain a place in camps designed to give refuge for displaced people. He has set up a simple tent that is one meter high and two meters long where he lives with his family. His wife passed away months ago due to illness and lack of medical care.
Ahmad supports his five children who have left school as there were none close by, also they have been working to help their father collect plastic waste to resell. They leave their tent after dawn every day, and return at sunset to secure their daily bread. Even though employees from several organizations asked Ahmad about his needs and noted them “down on a paper,” Ahmad’s family did not receive aid from any organization.
Over the course of seven months, the investigators followed a set of projects carried out by international organizations in Yemen. They analysed the documents and contracts of fourteen projects implemented by American, British and United Nations organizations. These have revealed that the operating budgets of some projects were greater than the percentage permitted by the Yemeni Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation. Currency exchange rates or contract details of other projects were also manipulated, and this prevented the delivery of aid to those who deserve it.
Hassan Mubarak was displaced from Hajjah governorate, and he has only received one payment as cash assistance from Hajjah governorate Humanitarian Response project. The budget of the project amounted to $1.079 million, and it was implemented by the Norwegian Council.
The project documents reveal that those in charge did not disburse the amounts specified in the contract; 30% of the budget, or the sum of $353,000, was spent on activities that achieve the project’s goal of disbursing cash assistance to people impacted by war. The largest share of the budget was spent towards the operating costs incurred to run the organisation’s offices in Hajjah, Aden and Sana’a.
A document showing the size of the operating budget compared to the project’s general budget
The American organization ADRA is a community service project focused on the displaced and their host communities that operates in several governorates, as it did in Hajjah governorate between 2019 and 2020.
The project’s operating expenses were $440,000, or 58% of the project’s budget of $757,000. The remaining amount of $317,000 was spent on activities related to the project.
Until the date of publishing this investigation, the organization’s office in Yemen has failed to explain why those amounts were disbursed as operating expenses in violation of the instructions of the Yemeni Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation.
The ministry stipulates that the percentage of the operating budget must not exceed 30% of the total project’s budget, but organizations operating in Yemen to deliver relief projects have failed to adhere to this.
Despite their clear violations of the guidelines set, both ministries of planning in Sana’a and Aden approved the implementation of these projects.
The Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation in Sana’a is under the control of the Ansar Allah also known as Al-Houthi group. Its ministry’s name has been changed to the Ministry of Planning and Development, and international cooperation whose powers were transferred to the Supreme Council for the Management and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and International Cooperation which is tasked with overseeing the operations of international organizations in Yemen.
The official spokesman for the council Tala’at Al-Shorjabi says, “The council does not interfere in the work of international organizations; however, it officially announces response plans, which are implemented by the organizations. The details of these projects are known. The council studies some projects submitted by the organizations to align with the response plan and the needs of the targeted segments of societies.”
Al- Shorjabi says that the council objects in cases that show unreasonable high costs, including instances where the operating budget costs exceeded the benefits delivered to the beneficiary parties. According to Al- Shorjabi, the council has put a stop to such projects, adding that “It is as though the organizations want the council to endorse such expenses.”
Al- Shorjabi says that in instances like those, the suspended projects is usually transferred to be implemented in other parts of Yemen, referring here to the areas under the “internationally recognized legitimate government’s control.”
Aden has become home for the internationally recognized legitimate government since 2015. Zuhair Hamid, the Director-General of the organizations in the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation in Aden denied these claims.
Hamid says that the ministry stipulates that the operating budgets of development projects do not exceed 30% of the total budget and that there should be no preconditions for implementing projects except that they should serve people and fulfil the development requirements adopted by the Yemeni government.
The documents we acquired contradict the responses of both sides, in Sana’a and Aden, as more than eleven projects documented between 2016 and 2021 had operating budgets that exceeded the 30% threshold, and reach 40% or 50% of the total project budget.
In a letter sent to ARIJ after the publication of the investigation, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) outlined the steps for accrediting organizations working on humanitarian projects which must take approval permits from the government. Once local organizations submit their proposals. The proposals are reviewed by committees composed of local and international NGOs and the UN.
agencies.
Each organization has to provide financial reports. Each project is subject to financial audit and monitoring. Once the project is completed, it is audited by an independent, internationally recognized external audit firm before the project is closed.
The United Nations and its partners provide humanitarian aid to nearly 12 million people in Yemen every month. The ongoing war which started between the Houthis and the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia in September 2014, has drastically affected the lives of the Yemeni people.
Squandering aid that was supposed to reach those who need it most did not stop at mismanagement of operating budgets. Some local organizations took advantage of the unstable exchange rates of the US currency, which was set by the central bank in Sana’a at 250 Riyals, when its actual exchange value has reached 600 Riyals to the dollar on the black market between 2019 and 2020, a change that has not been reflected in the organizations’ accounting systems.
Hussein Al-Fadhli, a pseudonym for a person who worked as a ‘needs officer’ in a local humanitarian organization between 2019 and 2020. Through his work, he concluded that the organizations adopt the official exchange rate, which yields large differences while implementing activities.”
Al-Fadhli gave an example, “The organization implemented a small project of installing water tanks in Hajjah governorate with the support of the United Nations Humanitarian Fund. The project cost was around 55,000 Yemeni Riyals, that is $92 at black market exchange rate. The Central Bank price was 220 US Dollars, that is a $128 per tank difference.”
A 2020 document issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) shows three prices for the Dollar: the official rate of 250; the price in the black market of 600 Riyals; and a new price of 666 Riyals.
Doctor Abdel-Qadir Al-Kharraz, member of the campaign “We shall not be silent: Where is the money?” which began its work to expose the corruption of international organizations in 2019 says that, “This document reveals corruption in handling the dollar exchange rates, especially with the difference between Sana’a and Aden. This is a major manipulation in the data that has remained the same in the Central Bank bulletins, especially in Sana’a.” He adds, “The organizations are playing a bigger game by not exchanging the Dollar at the Central Bank; therefore, these funds are not getting into the bank. This affects the overall economy negatively in addition to the fact that the funds are disbursed to the needy and to those affected by the war at an exchange rate of 250 Riyals. Moreover, the banking process between Sana’a and Aden is being manipulated.”
As the war in Yemen enters its eighth year, 80% of the population is in dire need of urgent aid with 3.6 million Yemenis on the brink of starvation. According to UN reports, the war has displaced nearly four million people who are living in extremely difficult conditions in many camps.
The international aid provided to Yemen through the United Nations organizations’ “response plan” has reached $17 billion in the first six years of the conflict.
Economic researcher Abdel Wahid Al-Aubali believes that “Half of those aid funds went to the World Food Program of the United Nations. Yemen’s average annual imports of grain is about 4.2 million metric tonnes. Multiplying this amount by the average price of grain at about $220 per ton, this makes the annual bill for grain about one billion US dollars. This means that $17 billion can provide grain to thirty million Yemenis for seventeen years.”
We emailed our findings to the international organizations that were mentioned in the investigation, but to date, we did not receive any response. In the meantime, Hassan and Abdo are awaiting their second share of humanitarian aid collected in their names. As poverty spreads in Yemen, international and local organizations are spending the vast majority of aid on operating expenses for their headquarters and staff.