The convention that the Dubai Ports Company will manage Aden Port makes us curse the day when people thought they could do something so ghastly!
There is no doubt that the location of the Port of Aden is strategically important. It is also a very important point on the World Ports Road and is considered one of the best regional sites, even being called the crossroads of East and West. This point must not be overlooked!
Historically, we need only consider the role of European countries such as Britain during its colonial period,when Aden was transformed from an ordinary, neglected port into the third best port in the world.
This agreement with the company must be reconsidered, along with the President's decision to stop the project!
What has happened is that they are now negotiating with the company instead of stopping the project forever and holding those responsible for this scandal accountable!
This convention, which is the theft of the nation under the eyes of everyone and with the protection of the law, occurred with the complicity of the corrupt Yemeni government!!
Several observations from the interview with Osama Bawazier in the Al-Ayyam newspaper show that those responsible in Yemen are infected with a malignant disease that eats away at the present and the future. Every day, we retreat two steps without taking one step forward!
Here are some of the clauses in this disastrous convention:
1. Article 37 states that the entire port of Mualla, which is a district in Aden where Aden Port is located, should be rented for two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars annually!
Dear reader, just imagine: the third busiest port in the world is being rented for less than the annual rental cost of a hotel suite in Dubai!!
The officials of the Ministry should resign over this article alone.
2. The lease of the Port of Caltex, which is next to the Port of Mualla (both of which are part of the Aden Port complex), is also very cheap compared to the expected income from the port's container traffic. The annual rent for the Port of Caltex is just one and a half million dollars!
3. At the end of the thirty-five-year period of the convention, the upper limit of the number of containers that will be handled by the Dubai Port Company in the Caltex port is three million, four hundred and forty thousand containers!
During the same period, the port of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (the main seat of the Dubai Port Company) has increased to about twelve times this figure, and the port of Djibouti has increased to four times this figure. Meanwhile, the port of Aden is the lowest in the region.
4. Another scandal stipulated by the convention is the fixed price per kilowatt for the duration of the thirty-five years!
This is not the case in any other contract in the world due to the ever-changing nature of electricity prices.
5. Handling rates in regional ports near the Port of Aden are approximately seventy dollars per container. However, Article 38, paragraph three of the contract states:
The operator will pay the state a maximum of six dollars per container, which is reduced to three dollars and seventy-five cents if the number of containers reaches two million!!!
Just so you, the reader, know the difference between $70 and $6!
6. Article 6 provides for the purchase of various cranes, lifting equipment, download equipment, a 30-metre boat, a 45-metre container engine, an aerial platform, etc. This amounts to thirty-five million dollars, which is the value of two cranes only. However, a simple calculation of the value of these assets puts it at more than one hundred million dollars in their current condition.
7 - Many of the scandals mentioned in the articles do not have the space to be mentioned. In return, the southern port of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia deserves an operator (also Dubai Ports), the same operator who wants to operate the port of Aden. The government of the Kingdom will receive 65% of the total income, while the remaining 35% will go to the operator to cover operating expenses and profits, and to continue modernising the port. The Saudi government has committed to investing more than one hundred and thirty million dollars in infrastructure and port equipment over the next decade, and is also committed to hiring citizens for the project. The operator does not have the right to change handling prices.Many of these terms are favourable to the convention with the Saudi government.
In summary, and with full transparency, it is clear that some officials in the state are trying to hand over management of the Port of Aden to Dubai Ports for personal and physical reasons, which are well known to everyone.
No one knows why the previous government did not re-tender for this important project. Instead, they sent delegate after delegate to Dubai to try to settle things and restore the proposals, so as not to lose their interests.
After everything that has happened, what more can we say?
Should everyone who signed an agreement with the company running the ports of Dubai, Jeddah and Djibouti, and who now wants Aden included on the list, not be imprisoned?
All the aforementioned ports are controlled by the company, so we have effectively handed everything over to it!
It is laughable and saddening that negotiations with the company are still ongoing!
The president delayed the strike of the axe to the head!
The spoilers will go back to negotiate afterwards!
The corrupt cannot be corrupt if there is no corruption above them, ending with the President.
How can we thank the President for what he did?
He is not at the top of it all!
What is he waiting for to see this scandal through to the end?
