Between misery and happiness...the life of scholarship students
Yemeni students sent abroad spend their summer vacation under the crisis of delaying their financial dues, or some of them being dropped from scholarship lists, or some of them failing to graduate. These pictures are transmitted to us by the “Yemeni Students Abroad” page on Facebook, where student protests appear in countries. Several times before the Yemeni Cultural Mission, and in the face of trying to find reasons and solutions to this problem, we remain in a circle of mutual accusations between each of the Yemeni embassies and their cultural attachés, and between the Ministry of Higher Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Finance, as each of them hurls at the other on charges of causing students’ suffering, The Yemeni street in particular, and the officials of foreign countries, are baffled by this crisis, as some Jordanian, Malaysian, Russian and other universities have warned Yemeni students of expulsion unless they pay tuition fees. On the other hand, the phenomenon of student labor in order to earn a living has spread in light of the delay in their financial dues, and it has begun. The roots of the crisis emerged after the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down from power, so the crisis was formed beginning with the Bassindawa government, passing through the Bahah government, and arriving at two governments: the legitimate government led by Bin Daghr, and the Houthis led by Bin Habtoor, and amidst all these governments there is partisan clashes between them, and each accuses The other is causing students suffering.
On the other hand...students on external scholarships at the expense of foreign governments are considered the luckiest among more than ten thousand Yemeni students sent to 32 countries for university studies at all degrees. There are other people who experience good luck, and they are students from the Charitable Fund Foundation for Supporting Outstanding Achievers and students from the Hadhramaut Foundation. For human development, which is led by Saudi businessmen of Hadrami origin, over vast areas of eastern and southern Yemen.
If we delved deeper into both directions, we would find the difference between them and the reason behind the unhappiness of some and the happiness of others.
The issue attracted the attention of local and international media, such as satellite channels (Yemen Shabab, Balqis, Sana’a, Al-Shariya, and Al-Jazeera) and newspapers such as: Yemen Press, Al-Mashhad, and “Inside Malaysia,” as the recent protests, some of which were directed at the security forces, raised the ire of the Yemeni street towards Al-Shariya. And its dealings with students, as well as the Houthis’ plunder of students’ dues from the Central Bank under the justification of the “war effort.”
And all we want to know in this investigation: Who caused the crisis that appeared since 2010 AD, and brought it to its worst form in 2018 AD, and is private support an alternative to government support temporarily in light of the war crisis in Yemen, and the cessation of air traffic to many countries? What is the role of the struggling student in the crisis, and is it true that students are part of the problem?
Under the Basindawa government, the legacy of corruptors and corruption of dignitaries overwhelms the legitimacy of the state. Students contract with the embassy about financial corruption
When the Basindouh government took over the reins of government in Yemen based on the Gulf initiative, and since they had a mark in the National Dialogue Conference, which requires efficiency in fair distribution between the regions, but we found the opposite. The Hadhramaut region, with four governorates, was given 52 grants in 2014, and the Azal region was given 137 grants. Knowing that the best region in which the educational plan was implemented is Hadhramaut, according to a statement by Al-Ashwal - the former Minister of Education - there are influential people in the Yemeni authority whose children, high school graduates, suffer from diarrhea with grades of good or very good. These are given priority over qualified students who are distinguished and qualified to study. Abroad, because they are the children of officials, and this is what happened with the grants provided to the Hadhramaut region (Al-Mahra Governorate), from which grants were taken for the benefit of the children of influential people from the (Al-Samawi) family.
This implementation is among the reasons that led to the unhappiness of scholarship students, as the Bassindoh government decided on February 13, 2014 to stop financial support for scholarship students in Malaysia, as the newspaper reported. From inside Malaysia In the words of Ahmed Al-Rubaie - Director General of Scholarships and Scholarships in Yemen at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, he said: The level of education in private universities in Malaysia is lower than public universities, and that tuition fees in private universities reach three times that of public universities.
He said: The cost of studying at a public Malaysian university is approximately (US $ 1500) (RM 5000) per year, while the costs of private university education are about (US $4500) (RM15000), and spending is on 9,000 Yemeni students, including four thousand in Private universities, and that the government can only cover $1,500 in monthly salary for each academic year
So here is the question: Why did the government announce the cessation of financial support for students in Malaysia, and did it know about the four thousand?
I spoke to one of the academics who was sent abroad before and after the Yemeni unification. He preferred not to mention his name. He said: The reason behind the recent decision is the corruption carried out by the embassy in Malaysia with some students, as the student travels to Malaysia without knowing where the university he is going is. However, he knows the price of tuition fees in public and private universities, and representatives of the Yemeni Embassy in Malaysia are waiting for him to determine the destination of the university he wants. This student requests to study at the private university - $4,500 annually, and the embassy hands him the amount or in another way so that he is the one who pays the tuition fees. Then the student studies for the first year at a private university, then transfers in the second year to a public university for $1,500 annually to benefit from $3,000 annually, divided between him and the embassy staff.
Al-Rubaie and his office employees have a role in corruption, as the Yemeni newspaper “Nabaa News” reported on 10/24/2010, quoting an official at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, that an armed gang led by a student who failed to study abroad in Yemen, and whose scholarship was recently cancelled, kidnapped the Director General of Scholarships at the Ministry of Higher Education. Ahmed Al-Rubaie in the Shamlan neighborhood in the capital secretariat, and took him to a deserted place outside the capital and left him gagged and tied for an entire night, before he was able to crawl out of the building in which he was placed to call for help with the help of the residents of the area.
The kidnappers - according to those close to the scholarship official - demanded that the scholarship of a troubled student studying abroad, Shaker Saleh Mutahhar Thawabe, be restored. They threatened to kill him and his family, telling him that what had happened was a message to the Minister of Higher Education and the committee charged with reviewing and correcting the conditions of students studying abroad, since the student was studying. He has been in Jordan since 2003, majoring in financial and banking sciences, and his financial aid has been stopped since the first quarter of 2010.
Here we prove the truth of what we say that the student is a partner in corruption along with the Ministry of Education, so how can he pay financial dues to a student like this who took a period of seven years in his specialization, especially since we examined the specializations in Jordanian universities where we found that the specialization has a maximum period of four years? Regularity.
Here comes old statistics from the Ministry of Higher Education from January 2009 until September 30, which indicated that there were about 2,056 struggling students, and this is a legacy that the Basindawa government inherited after the 2011 Yemeni protests crisis.
Here comes the question again: Didn't the government take the initiative to recognize this reality, or at least cleanse the Ministry of Higher Education of the corruption that caused this tragedy?
In 2012, several Yemeni newspapers reported that the Minister of Higher Education in the Basindawa government, Dr. Yahya Al-Shuaibi, conducted a questionnaire in the Ministry of Higher Education on the most corrupt employees in the ministry, in order to then correct, review, and hold accountable. This questionnaire was conducted using funds, and committees and supervisors of the funds were formed for this purpose, and the ministry’s employees voted. The most corrupt in the ministry.. The sources described that higher education employees created, with this questionnaire, a civilized way to express their rejection of corruption without chaos and disrupting institutions with the systematic protests that some institutions have witnessed recently.. The results of the questionnaire in the Ministry of Education were as follows:
1- Dr. Adnan Nasher - General Director of Educational Institutions
2- Anas Sinan - General Director of Systems and Information
3- Rushdi Al-Koushab - Director General of the Office of the Former Minister
4- Ahmed Al-Rubaie - Director General of Missions
5- Muhammad Al-Hasbi - Treasurer
6- Amin Al-Haidi - Head of the Accounts Auditing Department
7- Mujib Al-Salami - former head of the Budget Department
According to the source, a report was prepared of the results and referred to the minister. As the saying goes: its protector is its thieves, as corruption did not start from the outside before the inside.
The step was welcomed by many in order to correct the scholarship path, but Al-Shuaibi was soon replaced by the last minister in the Bassendoh government, Hisham Sharaf (currently Foreign Minister in the Houthi government), who dismissed Al-Rubaie, and pointed the finger at the Ministry of Finance for delaying the dues of 7,000 male and female students on scholarship abroad. And deprivation of more than the financial entitlement for the third quarter of 2014.
So, with this step, the Ministry of Finance joins the list of those obstructing students’ academic careers, which fall victim to young men and women seeking a future for their homeland upon their return from their country of study.
The Bahah government inherits corruption and leaves the scholarship crisis untreated
With the arrival of the Bahah government in late September 2014, the problem still exists and has worsened to a noticeable extent. Seven students on scholarship from King Fahd University in Saudi Arabia began sending an appeal to the Minister of Higher Education, Dr. Muhammad Al-Mutahhar, demanding that their financial dues from the Yemeni side be paid to them in addition to their dues from the Saudi side. This is similar to seven sons of officials and influential people under (the Scholarships Law, the decision of the Minister of Higher Education, and the Delegation and Scholarships Committee), which was behind the dismissal of Al-Rubaie during the era of Minister Sharaf.
Students are part of the same problem, and it is known to everyone that the financial dues for Saudi Ministry of Education scholarships are disbursed by the Saudi side in accordance with the Saudi Council of Ministers law related to scholarship students.
But financial corruption has a flavor among these people, which you do not find among those supported by foreign governments and the private sector, where there is competence and integrity.
Things continued like this until the outbreak of war in Yemen in early 2015 AD, when a new chapter in the suffering of Yemeni students began, which was the Houthi group’s control over their financial dues to the Central Bank. However, according to the statement of some students sent to Jordan, the delay in disbursing their dues extends for a week. Today, in this regard, the legitimate government has accused the Houthi group of full responsibility for the delay and disbursement of part of those dues for what the group calls the “war effort.”
Despite this delay, there was no interruption in the disbursement of financial dues until the last government came under the leadership of “Bin Daghr,” the man who remained in Saleh’s authority before his defection, and who is most knowledgeable about state affairs there. Here is the most severe chapter in the suffering. Perhaps one of the most important mysteries of this issue will find its answer in... “Bin Dagher” about the financial crisis that led things to where they are now.
Bin Dagher's government... government promises of an urgent solution... silence of ambassadors and attachés... influential people and officials are enjoying well.
Dr. arrived. Ahmed Obaid bin Dagher to the Prime Minister’s Office on 4/4/2016, and the Minister of Higher Education, Dr. Hussein Abdul Rahman Basalama on September 18, 2016. The date of arrival for both of them was accompanied by the latest mission that records a turning point in the intensification of the suffering of students abroad, and in response to it the emergence of a new surge of corruption, and the transfer of the Central Bank from Sana’a to Aden in September 2016 also played a role, where they met All these events took place in one month, and let us start with a document revealed by the head of the training committee of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate, Nabil Al-Asidi, about a military intervention by the Chief of the General Staff of the Sharia Forces, Muhammad Ali Al-Maqdishi, who addressed his speech to the cultural attaché in Kuala Lumpur about approving financial dues for the fourth quarter of the year. 2016, where it expressed the twin corruption between legitimacy and Houthis, and this list included the following names:
* Nephew of Major General Al-Maqdishi - Chief of Staff
* Sheikh Saghir Aziz’s son
* Saleh Shaaban’s son - Minister of Finance in the Houthi government
* Son of Brigadier General Abu Bakr al-Ghazali - Staff of the Republican Guard of former President Saleh.
* Son of Brigadier General Abbas Al-Madhahi - Director of Supply at the Houthi Ministry of Defense.
* The two sons of Brigadier General Aziz Al-Hujairi - responsible for the protection of former President Saleh.
* Son of Brigadier General Sadiq Sarhan - Commander of the 22nd Infantry Brigade in Taiz.
*Son Rushdi Al-Koushab - Cultural Attaché in Malaysia.
By researching and before we address the impact of transferring the Central Bank from Sanaa to Aden, we stop with a name that caught our attention and we searched for the details of its work, to find it on the list of spoilers, and to confirm to the public once again that the Yemeni embassies and their attachés have a role in increasing the suffering of students, and with Rushdi Al-Koushab, who does not know. Is he a university student or a cultural advisor at the Yemeni Embassy in Malaysia?
Nabil Al-Asidi published a document proving that Al-Koushab eats with both hands. The document dates back to 9/25/2017, when he ordered the disbursement of 2,000 Malaysian ringgits from the attaché’s account to the account of the student “Rushdi Al-Koushab.” Only his signature is noted in the document and without the signature of Ambassador Dr. Adel Bahamid.
But his partners in corruption are a group of students and other officials. A week after the dismissal, the decision comes to dismiss Al-Koushab from his position and refer him to investigation, as stated in Ambassador Bahamid’s memorandum to the Yemeni Foreign Minister, Abdul-Malik Al-Mikhlafi.
What prompted Hameed to take this step was that Al-Kushab sent an official letter to the ambassador asking him to clarify the students’ financial dues, which were disbursed without the knowledge of the attaché by order of the ambassador and his financial advisor.
If we return to the story of the scholarship academic who explained to us the system of corruption between the scholarship applicant and the embassy, we found that explanation completely consistent with the documents we found proving the involvement of the cultural attaché in Malaysia in financial violations, as it paid financial dues to students who were not registered in the higher education records, in exchange for a share received by the attaché. Of that money is spent on students who do not deserve it.
Some may say that the ambassador’s interference in the cultural attaché’s powers is against the law, in order to get the ambassador into a problem that has a partisan depth, but what redeemed the ambassador for his intervention was his implementation of the instructions requiring the disbursement of transcripts sent by the Undersecretary of the Scholarships Sector in Higher Education, Dr. Saleh Al-Abd, in addition to Minister Basalama’s acknowledgment of the dismissal decision a month after its issuance, and also that Al-Koushab was repeating the same problem against the financial advisor to the former ambassador before Bahmid assumed his duties on 12/3/2016, as Al-Koushab incited the students against the two ambassadors.
The step of dismissing Al-Koushab is considered by some to be an attempt to stop corruption, while the other party sees it as a cover-up for the decision of the Minister of Higher Education and the Minister of Foreign Affairs to add 250 names to the list of financial dues statements. This is what Al-Koushab rejected, because that contributes to doubling the financial crisis for students, and let us not forget. Among them are those who stumble.
There is a neutral party between the two parties that holds everyone responsible for the crisis. Al-Kushab has proven this against him. But what will come to us during the investigation proves the other party’s involvement in this crisis more clearly.
If we go to the Cultural Attaché in Cairo, and with the attaché/ Wahib Khuda Bakhsh, who applies the theory of “her protector is her thieves,” as he claims that he is fighting granting grants to the children of diplomats, after his dismissal and referral for investigation, despite the fact that his wife was among those to whom grants were given at his command, in addition to what he described. Some accused Bakhsh of financial embezzlement under the name “salary advance” of $80,000 from the students’ financial dues account.
As Aden Net newspaper indicated in its report, the decision to appoint Bakhsh violates the Higher Education and Scientific Research Law. Because he is a faltering student in his doctoral studies, the law prohibits the appointment of any student as a cultural advisor, in addition to not obtaining a doctorate degree until after nine years of scholarship. The decision to send him on scholarship was also canceled by the President of the University of Aden in 2014, and he did not obtain a doctorate until 2017. After his appointment as a cultural advisor at the embassy in Cairo.
So we have two Yemeni cultural attachés who were dismissed due to corruption, knowing that corruption has not stopped until this moment.
Returning to the transfer of the Central Bank from Sanaa to Aden in September 2016 and its role in increasing the suffering of students, students from Jordan appeared in one of the video clips in which they complained about the delay in their dues for months, after the transfer of the Central Bank, in addition to stopping the dues of 115 scholarship students, as The total number of scholarship students in Jordan until 2017 is (587) male and female students, and the stipend for bachelor’s degrees is: 18,00$ per 3 months, while for postgraduate students: 21,00$ per 3 months, where the stipend is paid every three months.
Between the Houthis and the legitimacy, there were accusations about who caused this, as Abdul Karim Al-Rawdi - Undersecretary of the Ministry of Higher Education for Scholarship Affairs in the Houthi government called the “National Salvation Government” said: As soon as the Central Bank moved to Aden, problems occurred, and they stopped the transfers and this affected the disbursement to the attachés. Cultural and students abroad, where some are paid and others are not.
While the cultural attaché to Jordan, Dr. Abdul Karim Al-Warafi said that the crisis was not the result of the moment when the Central Bank was transferred, but rather began with the transfer of Yemeni students to Syria to complete their studies in Jordan, fleeing the war that broke out in Syria in 2011, where he said: The Syrian crisis affected the financial disbursement of Yemeni students transferred from universities in Syria to universities in Jordan. This is because of their equivalent years in Jordan.
Of course, we do not forget the departure of the Yemeni embassy in Syria from the control of legitimacy and the Houthis’ seizure of students’ dues.
As for the current situation, Al-Warafi held the Ministry of Finance responsible for the delay in liquidity, as this was stated in his speech during the student protests in front of the Cultural Mission at the end of August 2016.
In an attempt to clarify the matter before public opinion, the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr. Hussein Basalama that what is happening is due to the war breaking out in Yemen, and that they are in the process of raising this to the Yemeni Prime Minister.
Meanwhile, Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abdul Malik Al-Mikhlafi added in his meeting with scholarship students in Jordan on 8/8/2017 that the reason for the crisis is the difficulty the government is facing in providing financial liquidity, as he pledged to solve the problems of Yemeni scholarship students abroad.
Despite this, the clarification was condemned by the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Higher Education for the Scholarships and Cultural Relations Sector, Dr. Saleh Al-Abd Al-Awlaki, who revealed the curtain in his Facebook post on 1/14/2018, where he said:
The Committee to Investigate Administrative and Financial Violations with the Cultural Attachés in Malaysia and Egypt aims to bring the curtain down on an organized looting of millions of dollars.
On the other hand, Al-Awlaki explains that corruption is based on its origins, as he said in his Facebook post on 1/12/2018:
The directives of His Excellency the President and the Prime Minister have been lost, and the verse has become upside down. As it is intended to close the door of grants to the first and to open it wide to the children of the influential and the up-and-coming, I apologize, and in public I appeal to His Excellency the President and the Prime Minister to take the necessary measures to protect scientific excellence.
Although Dr. Al-Awlaki returned five days later in another post to thank the Yemeni Prime Minister for removing the obstacles to granting the first ones, but three months had not passed since the thanks had passed before Halima returned to her old habit, as a new document dated April 2018 was revealed, approving grants for the children of diplomats at the Yemeni embassy to China, with the approval of Minister Basalama, which included the following:
1- “Hiyam,” daughter of the Yemeni ambassador to China (Muhammad Othman Dabwan Al-Mekhlafi)
2- “Lamia and Liqa,” daughters of Deputy Ambassador Ahmed Muthanna Qasim.
3- “Raif,” son of the cultural attaché, Muhammad Awadin Rabia.
4- “Rawan”, daughter of financial advisor Fares Taher Dirham.
5- “Fares,” son of Consul Abdullah Sonbol.
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The second part
