By Yonis Hamdan Ali
Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire (HAK) evokes strong emotions amongst the population and sadly more so than even President Farmaajo. This is simply because of his bold and bombastic statements mainly on government achievement, including fighting corruption- which is full of Humpty Dumpty. Please spare us the shallow talk of paying civil servant and the spanky offices; his cronies touts when talking to International dignitaries. Nonetheless, fail to show empathy to the suffering of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) just stone throw away from the Prime Minister’s Office.
How can Prime Minister Khaire reconcile, or even explain to the innocent public let alone the most ardent Nabad iyo Nolol supporters to his barefaced plunder of the country through proxies? On the one hand, he is built a million-dollar home in Karen, leafy Nairobi suburb? While he repeatedly shouts from the rooftops that he’s fighting corruption. Perhaps this is fighting corruption, the HAK’s way!
In an attempt to hide his ill-gotten money, Prime Minister Khaire employs old tricks. He fronts his cousin Abdikarim Siyad, also known as Gambe, a former cab driver from Ohio- US and a hotelier in Mogadishu as recent as 2018. Gambe now runs Khaire’s shady multi-million contract deals from fishing, ships, large scale farmlands, constructions, government supply contracts, to areas in Halane.
Credible sources said that within a short span of 12 months, Gambe amassed property worth millions of dollars in the form of real estate, shares in oil, fishery companies that he holds in proxy on behalf of Prime Minister Khaire. Furthermore, Gambe now has a KES 40 million apartment in Kilimani, a KES 5 million car in Nairobi, and hundreds of thousands in Nairobi bank accounts. He bought nearly all the houses adjacent to Jazeera hotel, a V8 armoured vehicle worth $220 thousand, a prime land inside Halane that’s near the AMISOM headquarters.
Meanwhile, Gambe’s elder brother, Mohamedweli Siyad, from Holland, bought lands in Nairobi, and upwards of eight commercial properties, some needing renovations, and tracts of farmlands in lower Shabelle region all within a short duration from August 2017 to December 2018. That’s the time Prime Minister Khaire was supposedly fighting corruption. As it turned out, that is truly the time when he was fighting for corruption.
It is not coincident that Gambe travels in advance of the PM to cut business deals in all the trips the PM Khaire or his fishery, oil, and security, aviation ministers, made to such countries as Turkey, Qatar, Belgium, the UK, Switzerland, and the US. For instance, Gambe made multiple trips to Italy to trace Italian large scale farmland owners. His mission was to negotiate with the Italian owners of farmlands in lower Shabelle, and lower Jubba to sell to him their land. Although there was no deal reached, the idea was complicated by local political dynamics of the Hawiye sub-clans who have occupied the farmlands since the collapse of the central government. You can imagine the amount of money one is banking on to think of securing such a business deal from Italian landowners in Somalia. Insane amounts!From the above, Prime Minister Khaire is two people living in one person ( split personality). That is the Khaire who claims to be fighting corruption in public and the other Khaire who privately is allowing such a perverse corruption empire the scale of which had never been seen or heard in post-Siad Barre years. The two-in-one Khaire. Now we know who Khaire is corrupt to the core!
The tragic part is that Gambe’s family was a united, hard-working family before Khaire’s appointment but are now profoundly entangled in corrupt dealings. Unfortunately, its a matter of time before they get ruined by the curse of getting involved in corruption. There is a glimmer of hope in that a pious half brother- the owner of the famous Aljazeera Hotel, who is Dubai based businessman realises the danger and stops them from mixing their family business with new wealth from corruption through stealing public resources.
Now Somalis have an experiment to observe, over a short or long period, on the effect of corruption on formerly relatively flourishing decent family businesses in the example of Gambe’s family. It will be an absolute tragedy if there’s corruption and Gambe’s complicity wipes out the fortunes of the family-someone among the family must act fast to save that family before it’s too late.
Yonis Hamdan Ali
Email: [email protected]
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– Hassan Khaire: A Portrait of a Con Artist By Gulet H. Hersi
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