Yemeni Military Spending High
In the vast landscape of so much tragedy and suffering in Yemen, sometimes odd things irk me, not enough dialysis machines is one.
A U.N. report on development has criticized Yemen’s high military spending compared to its low output for development and services.(Yemen to buy Russian military choppers (June 15, 2005) — Yemen and Russia are finalizing a deal for 12 Russian-made K-52 helicopters at a cost of $150 million, reports said. The daily Rai News Web site … > full story)
The report released Monday night by Flavia Panseri, the representative of the U.N. Development Program in Sanaa, indicated that Yemen’s spending on health constituted a mere 1.3 percent of its gross national product compared to more than 7 percent for military expenses.
“That means Yemen is investing valuable resources outside development fields with the justification that security should be boosted in order to help beef up the sector of tourism as well as oil,” Panseri said. The last arms deal made by Yemen at the end of 2004 cost $1 billion according to international reports.
Panseri called on the Yemeni government to speed up the process of human development, noting that development had been very slow and had declined in certain instances. An estimated 47 percent of the Yemeni population of 20 million live below the poverty line.
I have some World Bank report on the blog that says military expenditures as a function of total expenditures is about 25%, with 13% hardware (weapons) and 12 % salaries. So let us ask the question, what does the Yemeni regime do with all these weapons year after year?
