Countries at the Crossroads 2006

Country Report - Yemen

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Anticorruption and Transparency – 1.93

Corruption remains rife in Yemen, a fact recognized both inside and outside the country. Yemen earned a lowly 2.7 rating on Transparency International's 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index, placing it 103 out of 159 countries surveyed-the scale ranges from a most corrupt score of 1.0 to a least corrupt score of 10.0.³⁹ Critics of corruption within the country are not limited to the political opposition but are also senior members of the current government, including the head of Yemen's primary audit agency, the Central Organization for Control and Auditing (COCA), and numerous ministers. Yet despite Yemen's declaring it as a top priority for the past several years, the fight against corruption has seemed to lack the political will necessary to achieve much success. The discrepancy between Yemen's established legal framework and its practical application has meant little tangible progress in this area. When a coalition of opposition parties launched an initiative in the fall of 2005 to encourage political reform in order to fight corruption, the government rejected the plan and accused those who initiated it of trying to overthrow the current regime.⁴⁰ President Saleh himself has downplayed corruption within his government, saying, "Those who raise anti-corruption slogans are themselves corrupt."⁴¹

Yemen's civil service and public administration suffer from overall underdeveloped institutional capacity, inefficient management systems, burdensome procedures, low salaries that tempt civil servants to resort to corruption to supplement their incomes, and an unnecessarily large number of personnel. Yemen has embarked on a reform process to eradicate bureaucratic inefficiencies and corruption in the civil service, but the efforts have been impeded in part by widespread poverty throughout the country. In July 2005, the government began a four-stage National Wage Strategy that will reward civil servants based on specific job criteria and will, in stages, increase minimum monthly salaries from 8,000 Yemeni riyals (US$41) to 20,000 Yemeni riyals (US$102).⁴² As yet, it is too early to tell what effect this move will have on reducing government corruption. The government's patronage system involves "employing" thousands of Yemenis in government positions who draw double salaries, thus ensuring their loyalty to the ruling party. Many of these are tribal sheiks and military personnel.⁴³ Privatization has been one of the slowest components of the economic reform program, in part because of lack of proper laws and rules governing the privatization process.

Articles 118 and 136 of the constitution prohibit the president and ministers from engaging in private business of any kind. However, because Yemen currently does not require income or financial assets disclosure by government officials, enforcement relies on an honor system dependent on truthful self-reporting and self-monitoring.
COCA serves as the supreme audit institution in the country and conducts a series of regular audits of government ministries and organizations. Even though COCA officials claim that it is fully independent from the executive branch of government, the organization has failed to examine numerous allegations of high-level corruption. When sufficient evidence is gathered pointing to prosecutable cases of corruption, COCA refers them to the public funds prosecution office, as well as President Saleh's office.⁴⁴ Requests for investigations into corrupt government practices often go unanswered for long periods. Moreover, judges presiding over such cases allegedly have been complicit in corrupt practices themselves.⁴⁵

A culture of bribery allegedly permeates the state apparatus including hospitals, schools, and universities, with little legal redress available to victims.⁴⁶ Bribes are often necessary for such basic activities as obtaining hospital treatment.⁴⁷ In fact, those who raise objections publicly often face criticism or even worse. On April 23, 2005, Jamal Amer, the editor in chief of the independent Al-Wassat newspaper, was abducted, interrogated, beaten, and threatened by armed men who claimed to be acting on behalf of military officers; this occurred after Amer's newspaper published an article accusing the Ministry of Education of nepotism in granting government scholarships to study abroad to the children of prominent Yemeni officials.⁴⁸ The Ministry of Interior denied involvement in the six-hour kidnapping and promised to investigate the incident, but to date no charges have been filed.⁴⁹

Corruption costs Yemen substantial amounts of funding both internally and externally. Weak governance results in daily costs and lost revenues-COCA reported that in the first half of 2005, 55 cases of corruption resulted in financial losses exceeding 3 billion Yemeni riyals (US$15 million).⁵⁰ For example, by undervaluing imported goods and taking illegal surcharges on the undeclared amount, officials cost the government significant tax revenues. The World Bank estimates that such informal payments and other gifts necessary to do business in Yemen average nearly 9 percent of sales.⁵¹ Yet such practices go largely unchecked by the auditing and investigative bodies charged by law with fighting corruption. In fact, opposition politicians claim that, as of the beginning of 2006, "not a single official has been punished for financial corruption so far, despite reports by COCA revealing serious financial corruption in state-run organs."⁵²

However, international pressure has been mounting on Yemen to redress corrupt practices and improve governance. With the suspension of large amounts of external aid pending marked improvements in these areas-the World Bank reduced its loans from $420 million to $280 million while the U. S. government suspended Yemen from the Millenium Challenge Account Program for 2006-positive movement within the Yemen government may be starting to occur.⁵³ At the end of 2005, President Saleh referred two draft anticorruption laws to the government for debate calling for the establishment of an independent national inspection and monitoring commission that would follow up on corruption charges and work closely with local and foreign transparency watchdog groups. However, this anticorruption body, if created, would be supervised directly by the president, bringing into question its independence and effectiveness.

While the budget is formally introduced by the executive branch and debated by the legislative branch, President Saleh and the GPC dominate the budget-making process. Critics argue that Yemen, as one of the world's least-developed countries, spends a disproportionate amount of money on security and military issues and not enough on social issues and fighting corruption.⁵⁴ In addition, the failure to curtail the rampant corruption largely negates any legislative review and scrutiny of the budget.

On the other hand, parliament showed signs of a more active involvement in the political process in December 2004, when it delayed passage of the budget for the first time due to concerns over what opposition members saw as a lack of will within the GPC and the executive branch to institute reform and fight corruption.⁵⁵

Although Yemen's laws require a degree of transparency and public access to information, in practice detailed accounting of expenditures rarely occurs in a timely fashion. The state offers few procedures to ensure transparency, open bidding, and effective competition in awarding government contracts. The government does provide limited information concerning its expenditures on its website; however, as the majority of Yemeni citizens do not have internet access their recourse to the information is limited.

Recommendations

• Yemen's government should introduce requirements of public disclosure of personal finances, including income, assets, and all business interests for all senior public offcials such as the president, senior staff to the president, government ministers, top ministry of?cials, judges and other senior judicial authorities, and members of parliament.
• The government should establish formal mechanisms, such as an anonymous telephone tip line, by which government employees and individuals can report instances of alleged corruption and misuse of public resources.
• The new national higher authority to fight corruption should be fully independent of the president and the executive branch; it should be able to investigate and prosecute alleged instances of corruption and make reports thereof publicly available without fear of government interference.
• The Yemen government should actively enforce its transparency and public access to information law.
  

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