NDC teams visited public offices and met with senior government officials and their staffs in Aden, Abyan and Lahj on Tuesday.

The teams were composed of members from the NDC’s Development, Independence of Special Entities, Military and Security, and National Issues and Transitional Justice Working Groups.

The NDC teams’ meetings, all of which took place in Aden, focused on the performance and operations of public offices - as well as on what particular challenges face offices and officials.

The team from the Development Working Group met with the directors of customs offices, the Port Cities Development Corporation and the Social Welfare Fund. At the meeting, insecurity was cited as a key reason behind the deterioration of services in Aden.

The National Issues and Transitional Justice team met with union representatives for teachers, laborers, retirees and lawyers in Aden and Abyan.  The central theme of their discussion was the concept and application of transitional justice. The union representatives urged the NDC team to focus their efforts on uncovering violations of citizens’ rights.

At issue were violations which occurred from 2007 to 2011, as well as the matters of wrongful terminations which had occurred since 1991, enforced disappearances, political conflicts and how illegally confiscated lands and funds could go about being recovered.

Furthermore, there a special focus was placed on the suffering of martyrs’ families, who currently receive monthly amounts of from $12 to $25 as compensation for their losses.

The NDC team members also staged a demonstration to protest persistent electricity cuts. They held up placards bearing messages which urged the government to supply power to Aden and all coastal areas.

Separately, a team from the Military and Security Working Group met with a variety of Southern Movement followers.

The Southern Movement followers submitted their demands and described their vision of how a dialogue between the south and north on the matter of addressing southern issues could be held fairly.

NDC team leader Nasser Al-Tawil said the southern issue had been given maximum priority by the government and that it had also been put at the top of the NDC’s agenda.

He said, however, that the “acts of some southern factions don’t serve the issue; these factions are simply seeking to destabilize the country.”

The NDC members and Southern Movement followers discussed how rights could be returned to military officers who had been wrongfully terminated.

The Military and Security team also met with high-ranking officials from Aden’s intelligence, political security, national security, public security and special forces. 

The meeting was dedicated to a discussion of problems which affect the performance of Aden’s intelligence and security services, as well as how these problems could be solved.

Those present also spoke the overlap which exists between the political security and national security systems and how the institutions could best be combined.

The officials denied that torture was used to obtain information from suspects, before urging NDC members to visit prisons and investigate their situations.

In general, the security officials stated that Aden’s security institutions required reorganization and should be provided with all necessary tools to face armed militants who, they said, are attempting to destabilize the governorate and spread violence and acts of sabotage.