Almotamar.net - Deputy Premier for Defence and Security Affairs, the Minister of Local Administration Dr Rashad al-Alimi affirmed Sunday that the government has full and comprehensive direction for tackling the problem of qat with all of its social, economic and cultural dimensions and to carry out short and long –term measures and programmes for getting rid of this phenomenon.

Speaking at opening a workshop on a strategy for reducing demand for qat and limiting it organized Sunday by the Social Fund for Development (SFD) , in cooperation with the Ministry of Information and the World Bank (WB) , he sais there must be a work in the frame of studied programmes because the question of qat is complicated and thorny . Al-Alimi said the complication of this issue emerges from two aspects; the first is economic, as four million Yemenis depend on Qat as a source for living, whether in growing it, labour or transport or selling and the second aspect is the cultural as there must be a separation between the social habits and chewing qat.

Al-Alimi also pointed out the importance of awareness and information and the qat chewing phenomenon must be handled with a kind of caution and concentration on next generations and especially the woman and the children during school years and on alternatives for qat and school curricula in order to reach to a Yemen without qat.

The Deputy Premier has also drawn the attention to the necessity of preparing a joint strategy between the government and the civil society organisations and partners of development. He mentioned about indirect measures represented by raising the value of taxes on qat by 20% to push the farmers to plant other crops instead of qat.

For his part the Minister of Information Hassan al-Lawzi said limiting planting qat is a great challenge and “this bad habit is connected with essential facts difficult to overcome, regarding the proportion of those working in this sector and the great squander of water wealth and the social phenomenon is connected to our habits.”

Director of the WB office in Yemen said agriculture of qat represents 10% of the Gross Nation Production in Yemen and between 12 -14% of Yemenis work in qat agriculture and between 30-33% of agriculture workforce works in this field and the source of their income depends on it.