Report says Houthi authorities demand nine years of back zakat from Yemen's west coast traders

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TAIZ, Yemen — Houthi authorities have begun demanding nine years of unpaid zakat and two years paid in advance from traders on Yemen’s western coast, Yemen Online reported Friday.

The outlet described the demands as a new collection mechanism applied in areas the group controls along the Red Sea coast. It cited local commercial sources it did not name.

The arrears cover the period since the Houthis lost Mokha in 2017, according to the report.

Traders are being sorted into categories described as large, medium and small, the sources said. Payment demands are calculated from those classifications.

Collection is sought in cash and in kind.

Information on traders’ finances is being compiled in coordination with local district representatives, the report said. The same lists gather population and residential data by neighbourhood and district.

Business owners quoted by the outlet said the demands add to the strain on a private sector already weakened by years of war.

Yemen Herald could not independently confirm the account. The mechanism rests on unnamed local commercial sources carried by a single outlet, and Yemen Herald found no second origin for it and no Houthi statement addressing it.

Zakat is an annual obligation in Islamic practice, conventionally calculated at 2.5% of qualifying wealth. The report describes demands covering both past and future years in a single assessment.

The group has operated a centralised system collecting taxes, customs duties, zakat and other levies since it took Sanaa in September 2014, Al Jazeera reported on Sept. 14.

A July report by the Mokha Center for Strategic Studies called that system a parallel economy, according to Al Jazeera. It estimated the system accounts for about $2.5 billion a year in direct and indirect resources and costs.

The centre put about $800 million of that figure in taxes and customs and about $600 million in additional fees and levies. About $300 million came from cash and in-kind war contributions and about $100 million from mobilisation events.

A further $700 million represented indirect costs carried by businesses, the centre said.

The centre analysed nearly 68,000 commercial records. General trade and imports accounted for 26% of them. Food commodities accounted for 18%.

Houssam al-Saeedi, who heads the Economic Studies Program at the Yemen and Gulf Center for Studies, told Al Jazeera that levies outside the formal system are raised under the name of supporting the war effort.

A separate July report by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies said the Houthis revoked the licences of 4,225 commercial agencies. The Houthis say those agencies had failed to renew their registrations for three years.

The group says its measures support domestic production and small businesses.

It attributes unpaid public salaries to the central bank’s relocation to Aden and to lost oil and gas revenue, and accuses Saudi Arabia of a blockade.

The US Treasury Department alleged in January that illicit oil sales generate more than $2 billion a year for the group.

Collection drives aimed at traders were reported earlier this year. Yemen Online reported on June 23 that Houthi leadership approved a campaign in late May covering Sanaa, Ibb, Dhamar, Hodeidah, Amran, Hajjah and Saada, and parts of Taiz, al-Bayda and al-Jawf, citing Yemeni sources who spoke to Erem News.

The June campaign’s collections began before Eid al-Adha under the label of supporting occasion activities and resumed ahead of the Day of Wilayah, the report said.

That campaign targeted large importers, currency exchange companies, wholesale traders and fuel stations, the report said. Notices stated amounts calculated from import records, previous payments and activity levels.

Some businesses faced overlapping demands from tax, zakat and local authorities, and were asked to provide vehicles, fuel and meals for Houthi events, according to the same report. Payments were made in cash to authorised envoys, through selected exchange firms, or into accounts not linked to government entities.

Traders rarely received recognised tax receipts, that report said, and payments were logged under labels such as community contributions. It said several establishments suspended operations after disputing the demands.

Atalayar reported on June 2, citing the Yemeni news site Al-Mashhad Al-Yemeni and local sources, that field committees collected mandatory sums from shops and private companies in markets and shopping centres, tied to a reinstated State Day commemoration.

That report said the demands reached small and medium-sized enterprises that had previously been spared, and that similar collections were made before and during Eid al-Adha, including livestock given in kind. Traders cited in it described threats of shop closure, licence revocation, fines and arrest. Atalayar said it had not verified the scale of the campaigns.

Mokha lies on the Red Sea coast south of Hodeidah. Government forces took the town from the Houthis in 2017. Hodeidah port, to its north, handles the bulk of imports into Houthi-held northern Yemen.

The United Nations estimated in March that 22.3 million people in Yemen need humanitarian assistance and protection.

The March humanitarian needs and response plan recorded 18.3 million people in acute food insecurity and more than 2.2 million children under five acutely malnourished, 516,157 of them severely. It sought $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people.

About 5.2 million people remain displaced inside the country.

Yemen’s monetary authority split in two in 2016, when the central bank was moved to Aden.