Corruption Scandal at Yemen Embassy in France: Exchange of Accusations over Fate of Over $1.6 Million

"Yemeni Youth" sources revealed a financial scandal at the Yemeni embassy in Paris, which concealed the assets and revenues of the Yemeni embassy in France, and officials exchanged accusations regarding the fate of $1.6 million in revenues from real estate belonging to the embassy.

The program "From the Other Side", presented by colleague Abdullah Doublah, reported that "the Yemeni embassy in Paris concealed from the Ministry of Finance financial resources that it had been collecting for ten years, as income from rents of buildings in the French capital that are considered among the state's assets abroad."

Sources in the Ministry of Finance revealed that "the Yemeni embassy was receiving a monthly rent of twelve thousand euros from three buildings rented to the Sudanese embassy in Paris, while the embassy was receiving a monthly sum of sixty thousand euros from the Ministry of Finance."

The total revenues amount to 1,440,000 euros, equivalent to more than 1.6 million US dollars, and it is not known where they were spent amid accusations between the embassy in Paris and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has been using the Saudi capital as a temporary headquarters for the Yemeni diplomatic administration since the outbreak of the war in Yemen.

It is noteworthy that Yemen had two embassies in Paris, before the Yemeni unification in 1990, and after that, the former South Yemen embassy building was taken as the embassy of the Republic of Yemen, and the other building was sold during the era of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and a building belonging to the embassy was purchased.

Exchange of accusations between the embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

According to special sources, "the Minister of Finance in the current government, Salem bin Braik, did not know anything about the real estate assets in Paris, and when he discovered the financial corruption in the embassy, he requested that the obtained funds be disclosed, and directed the formation of an investigation committee."

The sources explained, "The Yemeni ambassador to France, Riyadh Yassin, held the Yemeni Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Awsan Al-Awd, responsible, as these revenues were brought to him, while Al-Awd denied having any connection to these funds."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs refuses to open an investigation file into the financial corruption scandal, as the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ossan Al-Awd, refused to comply with the investigation committee, based on the support he receives from members of the Presidential Council, according to what the sources told “Yemeni Youth.”

The financial corruption scandal reveals the extent of the imbalances in the legitimate government’s management system during the war, and the random and chaotic way in which government institutions have been managed from abroad over the past years.