The government of Shaea Al-Zandani on Tuesday, 19/05/2026, introduced a new economic measure under which it raised the customs dollar price by more than 100%, from 750 riyals to 1,550 riyals, and increased the price of a 20-liter diesel container by 24.5%, jumping from 29,500 to 36,000 riyals. Then it attempted to throw dust in the eyes of the people of Yemen by approving a 20% cost-of-living allowance for public sector employees, along with granting them their annual raises due for the years 2021–2024, and carrying out job-grade adjustments that had been suspended for more than 13 years.

These were the first measures taken by the Ministry of Shaea Al-Zandani since its formation after the military events that struck southern Yemen at the beginning of 2026, events which led to Aidarous Al-Zubaidi fleeing in January 2026 to Abu Dhabi. Is this truly a gift to the people of Yemen on the occasion of the coming blessed Eid al-Adha?

What kind of recklessness is this? What disregard for the suffering of the people! They raise prices many times over, then throw to the people scraps that are not enough to sustain a family for even a few days, as if they are doing a favor for a people exhausted by hunger, poverty, and deprivation.

This is the third increase in the customs dollar price: from 250 riyals to 500 riyals in July 2021, then from 500 riyals to 750 riyals in January 2023. Did any of these measures bring benefit to people’s lives? Or on the contrary, did they not cause severe harm due to soaring prices alongside the rise of the dollar, which today equals 1,550 riyals, together with last month’s rise in diesel and petrol prices, all of which naturally leads to general increases in the prices of goods and services? Can a 20% increase really face the rise in the prices of basic necessities? And then who will provide for the people who are not government employees and who will receive none of this increase? These policies come after the central bank failed to secure liquidity that would enable Shaea Al-Zandani’s ministry to pay the salaries of public sector workers, the army, and the security services, and to fulfill its responsibilities toward those under its care.

We do not know why there is such insistence on continuing capitalist economic policies that began before the start of the new century, destroyed livelihoods and resources, and have not succeeded in changing people’s living conditions for the better, let alone improving an economy whose condition worsens day after day. These repeated measures imposed by the successive ministries of the so-called “legitimacy” government are made by the International Monetary Fund, which has reappeared after an absence to take charge of the economy of southern Yemen with the aim of destroying it, not reforming it, and controlling the wealth and resources of the country. These are malicious capitalist prescriptions meant for further control over the land and the people.

In an unprecedented display of indifference toward worsening living conditions, the head of the eight-member council, only three days after raising the customs dollar and diesel prices, congratulated the people of faith on Yemeni Unity Day—while they are starving from hunger, crushed by rising prices, overwhelmed by crises, and watching services collapse before their eyes, while the powerful live in luxury and privilege. Most of them even live with their families outside the country while the the people bears the pain.

O our people in Yemen in general, and especially in the areas under Al-Zandani’s government: these rulers do not live your suffering, nor do they feel your pain. They live in ivory towers. Their standard of living is nothing like yours. Their salaries are in foreign currency and many times greater than yours, salaries that disappear from your hands as soon as you receive them. The situation will remain as it is until you awaken to what we are calling you to understand, and distinguish between the capitalist economic system that has ruined you and the economic system in Islam, which made the ruler a shepherd responsible for those under his care, not a tax collector who plunders them and increases their poverty.

On the other side, the people of Yemen living under Houthi control are not in any better condition. Rather, both governments compete in how harmful they are. They have not limited themselves to policies of impoverishment and starvation, but have corrupted every aspect of life, making Yemen unbearable to live in: from poverty and hunger, to fear and imprisonment, to the collapse of services, and above all that, removing the law of Allah and ruling by other than what Allah (swt) revealed. This is clear for anyone with sight and insight. How evil indeed is what they do.

«مَا مِنْ وَالٍ يَلِي رَعِيَّةً مِنَ الْمُسْلِمِينَ فَيَمُوتُ وَهُوَ غَاشٌّ لَهُمْ إِلَّا حَرَّمَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ الْجَنَّةَ»

“There is no ruler appointed over Muslim subjects who dies while deceiving them except that Allah has forbidden Paradise for him.”

And Hizb ut Tahrir, the guide who does not deceive his people calls you to work with it for the establishment of the second Khilafah Rashidah (rightly guided Caliphate) on the method of the Prophethood, whose leaders will not satisfy themselves until the people are satisfied before them.

«اللَّهُمَّ مَنْ وَلِيَ مِنْ أَمْرِ أُمَّتِي شَيْئاً فَشَقَّ عَلَيْهِمْ فَاشْقُقْ عَلَيْهِ، وَمَنْ وَلِيَ مِنْ أَمْرِ أُمَّتِي شَيْئاً فَرَفَقَ بِهِمْ فَارْفُقْ بِهِ»

“O Allah, whoever is put in charge of any affair of my Ummah and is harsh with them, be harsh with him; and whoever is put in charge of any affair of my Ummah and is gentle with them, be gentle with him.”

The Khilafah (Caliphate) alone is what will save the Ummah, spread goodness, provide the essential needs of those under its care, and enable them to obtain comforts and provisions. But today, under these unjust rulers, conditions continue to worsen day after day.

[وَمَنْ أَعْرَضَ عَنْ ذِكْرِي فَإِنَّ لَهُ مَعِيشَةً ضَنْكًا]

“But whoever turns away from My Reminder will certainly have a miserable life.” [Surat Taha:124]