DUBAI: Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has replaced Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher, accusing him of “negligence” in running the country.
Yemen is one Arab world’s poorest nations and, as a result of the conflict, three-quarters of its population – or 22 million people – require aid and 8.4 million are on the brink of starvation.
In a decree published on Monday, the president’s office said Dagher was guilty of poor economic performance and failure to avert a collapse of the Yemeni currency. The president’s office, in a statement, named Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed as the new prime minister.
Yemen’s currency, the riyal, has lost more than half its value against the dollar since the start of the conflict. Government authorities printed money last year to boost liquidity, when the exchange rate stood at around 250 to the dollar, but largely failed to avert the riyal’s plunge to about 700 to the dollar.
UN special envoy Martin Griffiths said this month that the United Nations was discussing an emergency plan to stem the decline and restore economic confidence.
Saeed was previously minister of public works and roads, which operates from Saudi Arabia, from October 2015 to May 2017. He was also part of the governmental delegation that was sent to the political consultations in Geneva and Kuwait.
