Yemen’s Talib Calls for Corruption Fight as Economy Shrinks 5%
Yemeni Industry and Trade Minister Saadaldeen Talib said the economy shrank at least 5 percent last year and the country must battle its “endemic disease” of corruption to help restore growth following the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The economy could recoup losses due to the protests that forced Saleh from office if it is purged of the tribal and military interference that have allowed illegal practices to flourish, Talib said in a Feb. 17 interview in the capital, Sana’a.
“Corruption in Yemen has taken an extreme form,” Talib said. “The central power in the state is the one spreading corruption in different sectors of the economy through patrimony.”
Saleh’s rule will formally end with the Feb. 21 election of Abdurabu Mansur Hadi, the interim leader and vice president. Hadi will run uncontested as part of a transition deal backed by Gulf states. Instability in the Arab World’s poorest country due to months of anti-regime protests cost Yemen more than $8 billion, former Industry and Trade Minister Hisham Sharaf said Nov. 13.
The protests were inspired by popular revolts that brought down the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya last year.
Talib was appointed minister in an interim government that was sworn in on Dec. 10 to oversee a two-year transition that is expected to end with a new parliament and constitution.
Yemen ranked alongside Cambodia as 164th among 183 countries and territories in Transparency International’s 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index. The index gave Yemen a rating of 2.1 out of 10, with 10 representing a clean state.
Economic Estimate
The Economist Intelligence Unit estimated in a survey dated this month that Yemen’s economy contracted 5.5 percent in 2011. The economy may register 4.4 percent growth this year as oil output recovers, it said. Yemen’s oil industry -- the country’s main source of hard currency -- was hit hard last year, with export disruptions and nationwide shortages following tribal attacks against the country’s pipeline network.
The International Monetary Fund is forecasting a 0.5 percent contraction for the economy this year.
Yemen produced 264,000 barrels of crude a day in 2010 and holds the eighth-biggest proven reserves in the Middle East, according to BP Plc data.
Talib was a member of an anti-corruption body that Saleh formed in 2007. He said he quit in 2009 because he was fed up with the “lack of political will to fight corruption and corruption inside the commission.”
“Now, it’s a salvage situation mostly to try to stop the country from drowning,” he said, adding that he expects opposition to his efforts to fight corruption. “It will be an uphill drive, but it’s a necessary one if Yemen is going to survive.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Donna Abu Nasr in Sana’a, Yemen, at dabunasr@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
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