5 years port fee swindled in 7 days, UN Monitoring Group Report
AT LEAST 1.7 million dollars was siphoned off government coffers between September 13 and 20 last year by the then minister and director general of Ministry of Ports and Marine Transport, a UN Monitoring Group report has revealed.
In a scathing indictment of senior government officials over the last two years, the UN Monitoring Group for Somalia and Eritrea, UNMGES points to systemic plunder of public resources, abuse of law for personal gain, money minting schemes in parliament and abuse of procedures by senior military officials at the expense of national security among a raft of accusations.
The Group further points to circumvention of government Treasury Single Account and use of private banks as conduits for draining public money.
Funds transfer
The report, which was addressed to the UN Security Council Monday details in one instance how the former Ports and Marine Transport Minister Yusuf Moallim Amin “Baadiyow” convinced United Nations Development Programme, UNDP to release funds the UN body had been holding for Somalia in trust to his ministry and weeks later the accounts had been swept clean.
On 13 September 2014, a withdrawal of USD 600,000.00 was made from the account. On 20 September 2014 an additional USD 600,000.00 was withdrawn, and a final withdrawal of USD 493,400.00 took place on 24 September.’
In the letter to UNDP, Amin accuses the UNDP of holding on to the Somalia funds yet it lacked any legal jurisdiction over the said funds. UNMGES says Amin erroneously argued the funds had been acquired without authorization and unconditionally from the Mogadishu Port by WFP and transferred to UNDP.
In trust
In 1993, the UN mandated then UN Task Force, UNITAF to manage the collection of port fees on behalf of the Somali Government until when they turned the funds over to a trust fund managed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Somalia and the World Food Programme (WFP). In July 1997, the funds, totaling $1,003,930, were transferred into a trust managed solely by UNDP Somalia, which the agency designated towards a Mogadishu Port rehabilitation project.
On March 17, 2014, the then-Minister of Ports and Marine Transport, Yusuf Moallim Amin “Baadiyow”, requested that UNDP Somalia turn over the port funds to the Ministry. UNDP said it had no objection but on condition that the funds were channeled to a Treasury Single Account, TSA and ultimately be put towards fulfilling the objectives laid out by the Ministry’s 2014 Work Plan, conditions to which Amin agreed.
TSA
However, contrary to their previous understanding, the funds were routed into a newly created Mogadishu International Port account at the Central Bank of Somalia (CBS), no. 1035, under the directions of the minister rather than the TSA.
A week after the first UNDP deposit, August 27, 2014, Amin wrote to the Accountant General, Central Bank and Ministry of Finance specifying that only he and the Director General of the ministry Abdullahi Ali Nur were authorised to withdraw the funds from account number 1035.
On September 13, 2014, a withdrawal of USD 600,000.00 was made from the account. On September 20, 2014 an additional USD 600,000.00 was withdrawn, and a final withdrawal of USD 493,400.00 took place on September 24.
Same script
The ministry had indicated it had earmarked the funds for the construction of an office building off Corso Somalia street in Mogadishu. However pictures released by the Monitoring Group as of August 2015 show an empty piece of land with a makeshift kiosk, one year after the funds were wired to the Ministry.
The demand for funds and withdrawal for personal use appears to be the modus operandi in government given the almost copy cat approach deployed by the ministry of Petroleum in the pretext of constructing a data room after receiving $100,000 from Soma Oil and Gas Holdings.