August 17, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report
Members of Parliaments Reject Mediations, Insist On President’s Impeachment
17 August – Source: Hiiraan Online – 315 Words
One of the leading legislators pushing the president’s impeachment campaign over corruption allegations has ruled out talks to end the political bickering, calling the president to follow suit to the former Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf who resigned after parliament tried to impeach him in 2008. More than 93 legislators have lodged the motion with the parliamentary speaker who past the supreme court endorsement would have present the motion to the parliament for vote. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud warned the campaign, calling the legislators to reflect on the country’s interests and avoid creating a political mayhem which he said could derail ‘progressive’ political and security gains in Somalia.“The president must make concessions, considering the country’s current situation,” said Abdullahi Godah Barre, one of the lawmakers who submitted the no confidence motion against the president.“There’s no way he should think that 200 determined MPs would back down their decisions.” He said.
The legislators have accused the president of corruption; a reason they said led him to lose public confidence and donors’ trust. In the motion letter, they said that donors have discontinued paying subsidy to the government because of corruption by the president. Responding to the allegations, the president has credited his government with security gains, by ousting militants from key towns and the expansion of the federalism system in many parts of Somalia. “Somalia has moved forward, and that progress cannot be halted just because obstacles or deceptions by elements who are not working for the interest of the public and the greater Somalia nation.” President Mohamud said. Somalia’s parliament speaker is yet to comment on the new motion against the president, one of the toughest jobs his office should deal with. Somalia’s donors often express worries over constant infighting between presidents, prime ministers and parliament, saying the spat could inflame tensions and undermine the country’s recovery from more than two decades of conflict.
Key Headlines
- Member of Parliaments Reject Mediations Insist On President’s Impeachment (Hiiraan Online)
- Security Forces Discover Illicit Liquor (Goobjoog News)
- Residents Of Garbaharey Demonstrate Against Jubaland Head And Ethiopian Forces (Wacaal Media)
- Pro-Madoobe Demonstrations To Kick Off In Kismayo (Goobjoog News)
- Speaker Meets Independent Constitution Review Committee (Somali Update)
- Abdi Becomes The First Somali To Graduate As a Marine Corp (Somali Current)
- Uganda Deploys More Police Officers To Somalia (New Vision)
- Somali Transplants Put Down Roots In Maine (The Boston Globe)
- Mr President Your Boarding Pass Is-Ready For Collection (Wardheer News)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Security Forces Discover Illicit Liquor
17 August – Source: Goobjoog News – 241 Words
Government security forces have seized liquor worth hundreds of US dollars.The soldiers conducted an impromptu inspection at a suburb in Somalia’s capital city, Mogadishu after members of the public raised alarm over a cartel involved in hiding liquor during the security operation in the city has stepped up, according to the spokesman of Somali Ministry of Interior.Officers discovered numerous bottles of liquor and other types of illicit drugs hidden in one of the rooms. Among those arrested include people suspected of selling drugs and muggers who rob residents in the dark hours.The ministry’s spokesman, Mohamed Yussuf said that the security forces have rounded up dozens of suspects using liquor in a house.“The soldiers have launched operations in which they have arrested several people who were selling drugs and others who were using these drugs. They also managed to put behind bars mugger who use machetes to rob residents during the dark hours to the extent people were unable to go the mosques for morning prayers, suspects would be taken to arraign in court” said Yussuf. Till now Somalia’s security forces have been battling insurgents, warlords and tribal militias in the streets of Mogadishu and elsewhere. This seems to be making into the history books as security is improving. Now the police have started to divert their attention to petty crimes like muggers and thieves as courts are struggling to contain domestic cases, something new to Somalia’s war ravaged country.
Residents Of Garbaharey Demonstrate Against Jubaland Head And Ethiopian Forces
17 August – Source: Wacaal Media- 192 Words
Hundreds of Garbaharey residents took to the streets on Sunday protesting against the newly constituted district and provincial administration as well as high handedness on the side of Ethiopian forces in the area. As earlier reported by Wacaal media, Ethiopian forces fired in the air to disperse the crowd as it was coming together in readiness for the demos but they proved hard to stop and staged their planned demos. Angry residents waved anti Madoobe as well as anti-Ethiopian placards. Traditional elders and other officials who organized the demonstration spoke to the participants in an open area. They accused Madobe and his administration of infringing on their democratic rights and gagging them using the muscle of the Ethiopian forces in the area. Kayse Gaas Adan, Secretary to the local administration told the huge crowd that Madobe badly treated politicians and leaders in Gedo region. He accused Madoobe of arm-twisting and forcing an administration on the locals using the Ethiopian forces. Locals now want the Jubaland head to reinstate the previous district administration which was sent packing and deported from the town by Madoobe and his cronies and replaced with the current one.
Pro-Madoobe Demonstrations To Kick Off In Kismayo
17 August – Source: Goobjoog News – 161 Words
Residents of Kismayo town are organizing peaceful demonstrations to support the outcome of the presidential elections of Interim Juba Administration held in Kismayo on Saturday. Goobjoog News correspondent in the town states that preparations to hold pro-Madoobe demonstration in Kismayo are underway. Public rally to back Jubaland President Ahmed Mohamed’s leadership is due commenced in the town amid hundreds of Garbaharey residents taking to the streets on Sunday protesting against the newly constituted district and provincial administration as well as IJA presidential election in the town. Hundreds of citizens from the suburbs of Kismayo are converging into the Kismayo football stadium where the demonstrations will take place. Security is extremely tightened as police and security forces are sent to the stadium and its surroundings to prevent any insecurity. The locals are making announcement of the demonstration on microphone and urging locals to turn up in large numbers. Ethiopian forces in Gedo region have blocked several planned Anti-Ahmed Madoobe demonstrations in Gedo towns.
Speaker Meets Independent Constitution Review Committee
17 August – Source: Somali Update – 102 Words
The Speaker of Somalia’s Federal Parliament Mohamed Osman Jawari has on Sunday met with the members of the newly approved Independent Constitution Review Committee at Villa Hargeysa in Mogadishu.The meeting was attended by the Interior and Federal Affairs Minister Abdurahman Hussein Odawa. The Speaker highlighted the importance of sudden start of the work of the constitution review in a time new federal states are emerging across the country.The minister and the committee also reiterated that the meeting was a starting point for a joint tasks ahead between the Federal Parliament, the Ministry of the Constitution and the Constitution Review Committee.
Abdi Becomes The First Somali To Graduate As a Marine Corp
16 August – Source: Somali Current – 180 Words
The first Somali to have ever completed the intensive training of the United States Marines has yesterday graduated, circled by family members. Abdi Mohamed who is a member of the Somali-Bantu Community in Phoenix, Arizona left the biggest refugee camp in the world, Dadaab’s Dagahley while he was 8 years old. Abdi took part in the high-level training in the Marine’s main base in San Diego, California. The training is usually participated by a chosen few who have proven themselves. Abdi is not the first Somali to have tried the intensive training. He was preceded by others, but was the first to have completed the process.
The Marines are the most powerful uniformed unit in the United States and are also charged with securing United States embassies across the world. United States Marine Corps Recruit Training, commonly known as “boot camp”, is a 13-week program of initial training that each recruit must successfully complete in order to serve in the Marine Corps. Marines generally hold that their recruit training is the most physically and mentally difficult amongst the Uniformed Services
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Uganda Deploys More Police Officers To Somalia
17 August – Source: New Vision – 546 Words
A new contingent of Ugandan Individual Police Officers (IPOs) has been deployed in Somalia to serve on the peacekeeping mission. The contingent comprising of 14 police officers has been fully inducted after undergoing a one week’s training course upon arrival and is ready to serve under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). At the end of their induction on Friday, the officers were advised to focus on peacekeeping roles and avoid untoward behavior that may compromise their work, according to a statement issued by AMISOM. Speaking at the end of the induction training the Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission for Somalia (SRCC) Ambassador Maman Sidikou stressed the importance of policing in the peacekeeping mission.
“Police will be playing a greater role as we move towards the 2016 elections in Somalia. You will complement the efforts of your military colleagues in keeping peace. Your role of liberating the country into a peaceful one is very important,” Sidikou told the contingent. He also urged the officers to be conscious of and respect the culture of the local people and pay particular attention to protecting women, children and vulnerable groups. He also warned against sexual exploitation and abuse. IPOs are involved in training, mentoring, advising and helping build the individual capacities of Somali police officers as well as the Somali Police Force (SPF) as an institution. AMISOM Police Commissioner Anand Pillay described the induction training as intense but added that AMISOM has zero tolerance to sexual exploitation and abuse, warning that the mission has zero tolerance for such vices.
Somali Transplants Put Down Roots In Maine
16 August – Source: The Boston Globe – 1,102 Words
Six-foot stalks of corn crowd a small rise at Intervale Farm, a 19th-century spread of rolling fields that lead to the Royal River. It’s a picture of vintage Maine, but there’s something new: farmers clad in swirling, vibrant, dazzling colors rather than grass-stained denim and John Deere caps.The men and women working the soil are refugees from Somalia, ethnic Bantus who fled a brutal civil war more than a decade ago and found their way to an unlikely home in Lewiston, a former mill city 35 miles north of Portland. They clung together in tenements, strangers in a wary city where their reception ranged between chilly and hostile. But now, after years of gradual acceptance, they are emerging to rediscover the joys of an agrarian past.
Gamana Yarow, a 27-year-old mother of four, is among the Somalis working the farm. “This is what I love,” she said, picking with a small hoe in a thick patch of corn, peas, onions, and potatoes. “This is like our backyard in Africa.” Yarow works one of 33 plots the Somalis are renting at Intervale Farm, 118 rolling acres where pumpkins and squash were king until owners Jan and Carl Wilcox decided to leave the fields and rejoin the business world. The Somalis were looking for land to grow vegetables, the Wilcoxes were looking for help with their property taxes, and a lease was signed this spring for about three acres, which have been divided into plots of one-tenth of an acre each.
Thirty-six families work the plots, and 20 more are on the waiting list for Intervale Farm, about 12 miles south of Lewiston. “We thought it would be a win-win for everybody,” said Jan Wilcox, a technical writer for an engineering firm, who said pumpkin farming had become too time-consuming and arduous. Wilcox doesn’t miss the back-straining work, but she admires the way the Somalis are doing it. “They have the best gardens out there,” Wilcox said. They are fertilizer-free gardens brimming with corn grown with African seeds. There are beans, kale, and cilantro, too — all of which makes it back to kitchens in Lewiston, where exotic garb and aromas from the Horn of Africa are staking a claim in a city long accustomed to French-Canadian customs and cooking.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“In contrast, dodgy and fictitious companies owned by corrupt Somali officials have been operational in Somalia and United Arab Emirates for quite some time without any form of registration. These companies are diverse and are represented in various sectors of the economy such as construction, healthcare, education and banking. It has become an enigma to decipher as to who owns what in Somalia,”
Mr President Your Boarding Pass Is-Ready For Collection
16 August – Source : Wardheer News – 1599 Words
Of late the local media in Somalia and a number of International news outlets have been diligent with their verbal diarrhoea on the upcoming impeachment motion against the Somali President.The vast majority of Somalis on the streets of London and elsewhere cheered after it became evident that the Somali Lawmakers at long last submitted an impeachment motion against the Somali President who has been inculpated/ incriminated of grand corruption among and other malpractices.I suppose we are all familiar with how harmful and damaging corruption is. There are tons of materials on the perils and effects of corruption.Most scholars claim that Public Sector Corruption is a key barrier to effective service delivery and a barrier to economic growth and development.
According to these scholars, corruption blocks basic human rights for the poorest but also creates governance problems and instability. It also increases the cost of doing business, for instance some Multinational Companies integrate into their budget monies entirely earmarked for bribery purposes in the third world, thus the operational costs is increased and in the end the consumers will have to absorb this extra cost. We will also need to consider the fact that corruption adds 10% to business costs globally and that cutting corruption by just 10% could benefit the global economy by $380 billion. Jose Ugaz, chairman of Transparency International, argues that governments that refuse to be transparent and tolerate corruption create a culture of impunity in which corruption thrives. I’m sorry to say all of these factors are currently and have been present in Somalia.
TOP TWEETS
@radiogarowe: #Somalia: First female candidate announces run for Garowe mayor http://bit.ly/1HOfJUY
@SalahOsman0: #Somalia is moving ahead. Fresh female police recruits in #Mogadishu
@somaligov: Why ex- Somali Federal Constitution Minister MP Hon. Hosh Jibtil exposed President’s corruptions? https://youtu.be/l68iM5veqKc via @YouTube
@SomaliaNews24:If Pres.Hassan is impeached/sacked, Jawari will be 1st ever #Somalia President from #SouthWest! His Deputy Jaylani will be Speaker!Historic?
@M_Elmi:#Somalia #HumanRights #EndFGM At the religious clerics consultation on the Somali government FGM eradication policy. #Mogadishu @ZSamantar
@UNFPA_SOMALIA: Supporting #RatifyCEDAW capacity building training for #Somalia government directors@GKyeyune @Pilirani @IsatuKajue
IMAGE OF THE DAY
AMISOM Force Commander, Lt. General Jonathan Rono, makes his remarks during the High-Level joint conference.
Photo: AMISOM