(Zaman al-Wasl)- Regime-run news outlets reflected a widespread anger for regime supporters due to depreciation of the Syrian Pound (SP) value in front of the American Dollar. The depreciation led to a rocket increase in prices. State employees’ and workers’ salaries does not suffice for more than five days.
Some regime supporters held Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi responsible as well as Governor of Syrian Central Bank Adeeb Mayaleh. Mayaleh in response told state-run news agency SANA that the value of the SP will improve in the coming days because the Central Bank intervened and pumped a huge amount of Dollars into the market.
Pro-regime Facebook pages launched a big campaign against the government. One of the pages demanded a militarized government to run the country instead of the government which they described as Islamic State government.
The invisible government
Other pro-regime Facebook pages accused prominent army officers and state officials of participating in what they described as a crime of destroying the SP by trading the currency, money laundering and money trafikking abroad.
Ali Haydar wrote on his Facebook page the invisible government is trafiicking the curreny illegally causing collapse of SP and then it orders the Central Bank to intervene. Haydar asked, “does the bank dare to publish the names of those who bought millions of dollars?”
And he responded with, “it is impossible to understand the prominent army officers and state officials. In our country the protector is the thief.”
Economists attribute the depreciation of the SP to many reasons but all are connected to regime launched war against its population and its losses ın battles south of Aleppo.
Pro-opposition economic expert Mustafa al-Ahmad said, “the regression of regime economy is not incidental, it started with the regime military campaign on its opponents. The SP lost 90% of its value in the last five years.”
He adds that the SP every now and then undergoes a setback that exceeds its usual regression and that is often related with field developments and the increase of smuggling money as well as whenever the regime loses in the field.
Al-Ahmad indicated the return of some smuggled money which Panama Papers talked about and it is estimated to be tens of Billion dollars and that should preserve the value of the SP.
The salary is 50$
What aggravated a wide segment of regime supporters is that the salary of state employee does not suffice to spend on a family of 4 for more than a week. A pro-regime Facebook page estimated that the minimum to meet the needs of a family of 4 is 180 SP a month and the number is five times more than the employee’s salary or a worker’s salary which does not exceed 35 thousand SP.
An employee in state-run power directorate in Latakia spoke on condition of anonymity and said, “playing with the value of the SP serves the regime thugs and power corrupted officials and traders. It turns the life of people with low-income into a tragedy that you just want to secure the minimum of bread and food.”
Abu Ishraq ironically asked the regime supporters to protest on Friday and named the protest “oh God! Dollar please go down!”
The US dollar used to equal 50 SP with the outbreak of the revolution, but now it equals more than 650 SP. That means the value of state employee comes down to 50$.
Translation by Rana Abdul
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