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UN alleges illegal arms trade, corruption rampant in Somalia

Saturday October 18 2014
alshabaab

Some arms shipment meant for security forces have found their way into the black market. PHOTO | FILE | AFP

Governance in Somalia remains riddled with corruption, a new United Nations report says. It alleges that vast amounts of donor aid and port revenues are being stolen while some arms shipments intended for security forces have been diverted into the black market in Mogadishu.

The UN report also accuses a prominent Somali businessman, who has acted as an advisor to the country’s president, as being involved “in the leakage of weaponry to Al Shabaab and other forces beyond the army.”

It names Musa Haji Mohamed “Ganjab” as the presidential advisor who has been involved in diverting arms supplies to Al Shabaab. In a comment quoted by the Reuters news agency, Mr Ganjab denies the allegation “in the strongest possible terms.” He adds that he has never been involved “in any way in the trafficking of arms to anyone.”

The Islamist insurgent group is assessed in the report as still strong despite strategic strikes by the United States against its leaders.

READ: Why splintered al Shabaab worries security experts

These attacks have yielded short-term gains, “but significantly failed to diminish Al Shabaab’s operational capacity,” says the report. “There is no current evidence that they have the potential to ‘degrade and destroy’ Al Shabaab.”

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The report cites Shabaab’s “Badru Nairobi Operation” — the attack last year on the Westgate Mall — as evidence of the group’s potency and its strategic alignment with the Al Qaeda network. The Westgate slaughter was “conceived in Somalia, planned from a United Nations refugee camp and executed from Eastleigh in Nairobi,” the report says.

It adds in a footnote that the UN Monitoring Group “remains extremely concerned at the use of United Nations camps as safe havens and staging grounds for Al Shabaab operations. Since its mandate in 2010, it has observed an increased Al Shabaab presence, exploiting such camps for terror activities.”

READ: Al Shabaab plot to attack Ethiopian capital, US says

Political circumstances changed in Somalia in 2012 with the establishment of a federal government, but the report warns that corruption has in some cases made things worse. Up to 80 per cent of government funds are being diverted and used for “partisan agendas that constitute threats to peace and security,” the eight-member Monitoring Group finds.

In addition, at least 35 per cent of revenues generated by the port of Mogadishu “cannot be accounted for,” the report says. It also cites “continued diversion of humanitarian assistance by state actors (including the security forces) non-state armed actors (including Al Shabaab), staff of humanitarian agencies, private contractors and criminal entities.”

The Monitoring Group, which operates under the auspices of the UN Security Council, expresses particular concern about a system of “secret contracting” on the part of the federal government.

“Contracts regarding national public assets affecting the public interest have been signed by government officials but kept highly confidential — from the Somali population, the parliament and, until now, international donors,” the report says. It notes that this absence of accountability “creates the opportunity for misappropriation.”

The federal government has also failed to comply with the terms of a modified arms embargo set forth by the Security Council in 2013 and adjusted earlier this year, the 482-page report adds.

The loosening of the embargo enables the Somalia government to import weapons for the exclusive use of its security forces. A Security Council resolution stipulates that these weapons must not be made available to any other entities.

About 13,000 weapons of various types and 5.5 million rounds of ammunition have been or will be delivered to the federal government in accordance with these terms, the report says. “Some of the weapons and ammunition have been diverted to arms markets in Mogadishu,” it said.

In a portion of the report focused on Somali piracy, the Monitoring Group makes note of the steep reduction in such operations in the past few years but warns that the underlying causes of piracy “continue to exist.”

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