Somaliland: Corruption And Mismanagement At World Bank Funded Public Finance Reform (Pfm) Office.
By:Abdi Daakir
Somaliland is in dire need of various public sector reforms to fight corruption and enhance transparency, however the efforts of the international community is being tainted by wide scale corruption and mismanagement, especially in the office of public finance reform(PFM) funded by the World bank.
A gentleman called Mr.Samater is in charge of the Somaliland PFM with the blessing and backing of her cousin, the Minister of finance Zamzam abdi Aden. Together they have placed their cousins and daughters at the PFM office and used for the PFM World Bank fund eared for the PFM for ghost workshops, trainings and consultants, who actually never happened in Somaliland, with no record and audit trail.
The same program expected to fight corruption and bad governance became the lead office in corruption and embezzlement in Somaliland. Mr.Samatar a corrupted and outdated officer, who hails from the Ahmed Nuh sub tribe of Minister Zamzam is totally inept to hold such important portfolio for the Somaliland public. To save its face and comply with its integrity rules, the World Bank needs to keep a distance in dealing with the likes of Samatar,otherwise we are assuming that the World Bank Nairobi staff is in the same boat with him embezzling world banks earmarked for anti corruption and transparency measures in Somaliland.
To salt to an injury, she further allocated a budget of $400,000,000 to this crooky office from the Somaliland government, just splitting between her and Samatar.Minister Zamzam is killing the donor confidence in Somaliland by defending and colluding with corrupted individuals from her sub tribe.
Here in Somaliland, all the World Bank funded consultants are recruited in shady and corrupted procedures. The consultant hired for the local government in Hargeisa,is from the Mayor’s sub clan of Gadeed Nuh and the one recruited for the Ministry of planning is a close cousin for the Director General of the Ministry of planning and both hails from Warsangali sub tribe. All this further erodes public confidence in World Bank operations in Somaliland.
We urge the World Bank team in Nairobi to independently and objectively recruit all consultants in the local offices and should not leave it alone for the presiding officers in such offices.
If the public perceives the World Bank program as the mother of all corruptions, the PFM and all other anti corruption program will not make any headway. Already Somaliland intellectuals believe that all World Bank job opportunities are awarded in unfair,corrupted,and clan biased system.
By:Abdi Daakir
Abdi holds masters in finance, banking and regulation
