By Zamsam Abdulqafar
Transparency International’s most corrupt country
Transparency International recently released report on corruption index that ranked Somalia the most corrupt country in world, is the latest clearest indication that Prime Minister Hassan Ali Kheire is truly a con artist.
Yonis Ali’s article on Kheire’s double talk on corruption published in wardheernews.com on June 1, 2019 was as spot on as it was sad. In the article Yonis exposed the rot beneath the surface of Hasan Kheire’s facade.
Just like most corrupt officials, Kheire’s public facade masks deep running rot in the Prime Minister’s office. Unfortunately for Kheire, his empty rhetorical rants at stage-managed functions, had done nothing to hide his tracks as intended since he is continually being exposed for who he truly is: a fraud.
Hiding in plain sight
Prime Minister Kheire naively thought his bombastic style could afford him a cover from close scrutiny. Yes, but not for long. He was soon exposed for the fraud that he embodies.
Even ordinary people, who at first fell for his empty rhetoric, are now fed up with him. The truism that one can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time comes clearly into picture upon ones reflection of Kheire’s rusty rhetoric. He watches too many Obama and other leaders videos as to translate some of their expressions into Somali, hence his tired rhetoric devoid of meaning.
Kheire is a corrupt to the core, insecure, miniature dictator hiding in plain sight. He suffers from depleting insecurities. His awkward facial expression and scary grin tells it all. His aggressive gestures, simplistic expressions, and annoying repetition, and facial expressions are out of synch, a clear pointer that he’s pretentiously unnatural.
If designer Italian suits had brains this country could fly. People who know him well speak of a Kheire who’s ill at ease with and spends too much attention and effort on how to hide his balding head. His security and photographers have express instructions to not allow anyone focus a camera toward that piece of real estate that his head is.
Blaming the victim
His dishonesty and deceptive ways has caught up with him. People realized he scapegoats them for his incompetence, that instead of offering solutions to challenges they face, he burdens the public with blame.
He never misses an opportunity to put blame on an already heavily burdened public for supposedly not cooperating with the government in the fight against insecurity and corruption. He applied for this job, the premiership and got it. He should not therefore blame the public for his lack of progress and his incompetence.
To keep telling populations that had been dispossessed and disempowered by each and every of the consequences of statelessness for so long, that they are the only ones who can get themselves out of the rat hole they had been resting in, is to short change them of the promise of great leadership and the dividend that it aught to have borne them. He forgets or conveniently ignores that any leader worth his salt leads from the front. Action, they said, speak louder than words.
The corruption continues
In addition to the corruption examples that were highlighted in Yonis’s article, here are some more examples of corrupt practices that Kheire and his office are brazenly involved in that oversight and transparency agencies should take note of as did Transparency International:
1. OPM is involved in underhand dealings, highly secretive tax exemption racket that also involves the finance minister Abdurahman Beyleh and customs and port officials. Through the tax exemption racket Kheire and handlers rake in multimillion dollars in kickbacks through proxies.
2. Kheire’’s office is engaged in rent seeking racketeering with Banadir Regional Administration (BRA) through which he receives a cut of its daily revenue collections. It’s the reason why he fired the BRA deputy governor in charge of finance because he could not cooperate “sufficiently.” Now he has a handcrafted new deputy mayor in charge of finance who’d respond to his insatiable appetite for a cut as he wished.
3. Kheire’s Permanent Secretary, Ahmed Nuur, is irregularly drawing a monthly salary of $12,000 from European union through UNPOS. This is in-spite of the fact that it’s illegal for civil servants to be paid outside of the remunerations scheduled in the public service commission. It’s also irregular for donors to pay the salaries of state officials. Using coercion and manipulation his staff will have their way with donors.
4. Samira Gaid, who is Hassan Kheire’s special secretary, also takes home an immoral $12,000 from EU through UNPOS against existing donor and FGS regulations. Samira is engaged in unprofessional, unethical work practices that the prime minister either shamelessly condones or has his express approval. This means, since he sanctions or entertains unprofessionalism and unethical practices, the prime minister is himself unprofessional and unethical. One wonders what happened to his “islaxisaabtan” and anti-corruption tough talk?
5. Samira Gaid is confirmed to lack college degree. She reportedly used fake papers in her previous employments with AMISOM. Kheire hired her without due diligence and when the facts against Samira came out he ignored calls for him to address Samira fraudulent practice. Instead he irregularly rewards her with such a mind boggling tidy sum and other kickbacks.
6. Samira claims to have worked for Kenya’s state house presidential press unit as a communications specialist. She lamented to her close relation that she resigned because she was viewed with suspicion, sidelined and discriminated against by her colleagues from other Kenyan communities because she was Somali. But others say she lasted there for only a few weeks because of fraud related with forged college papers.
7. There are reports that OPM has in the past months been aggressively knocking on donors’ doors to push for some advisers at the OPM to be put on a monthly pay of $12,000 for a minimum renewable contractual period of one year. There are initial reports that they encountered pushback from some of the donors. But its not clear if OPM had finally had their way.
8. At the expense of institutional development Kheire has empowered Samira Gaid, against the Ministers of internal security, defence, and their director generals. She humiliates and orders around the police commissioner, the chief of defense forces and often reverses their decisions and talks back at them and after them in meetings with internationals even in the presence of the Prime minister. Kheire allows her to make presentations in multilateral meetings attended by all Ambassadors and other senior officials from the donor community. Because of her excessively controlling ways over the PM, the Americans refer to her as “queen bee,” a term that Samira reportedly takes as derogatory but never openly complained.
9. OPM is also said to have its hands deep in the till of security forces stipends. Fingers are also pointed at Kheire for his projectization of Mogadishu stabilization plan which he used to syphon out millions of dollars in diverted cash.
Zamsam Abdulqafar
Email: [email protected]
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Related articles
– Hassan Khaire: A Portrait of a Con Artist By Gulet H. Hersi
–The blah blah prime minister of Somalia! By Wardheernews
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