March 16, 2018 | Daily Monitoring Report
Somali Forces Kill 7 Al-Shabaab Militants In South Somalia
15 March – Source: Xinhuanet – 129 Words
Seven Al-Shabaab fighters were killed Wednesday by Somali forces in the coastal city of Kismayo in southern Somalia. Somali military commander in Kismayo, Mukhtar Abdi, told journalists that the forces launched an ambush against the militants following a tip-off in Wirkoy area.”We got prior information that they were planning to attack us in Wirkoy area. We moved in fast and killed seven Al-Shabaab fighters.”
The commander added that one soldier was injured in the fight which lasted for a short time. The militant group has not commented on the development. Security forces have continued assaults against the militants in southern parts of the country. Kismayo port which was a major source of income for Al-Shabaab was captured by Kenyan forces in 2012, driving the militants to adjacent towns.
Key Headlines
- Somali Forces Kill 7 Al-Shabaab Militants In South Somalia (Xinhuanet)
- Somalia To Implement Harmonized Tax Policy For The First Time Over 27 Years (Halbeeg News)
- Somalia Government Bars Politician Warsame From Giving Lecture (Radio Dalsan)
- Grenade Attack Kills At Least 3 In Northern Somalia (Xinhuanet)
- Online Delivery Startup Gulivery Scales Across Somalia (Biz Commuinty)
- Repeated Emergencies In Somalia: A Donor Fatigue Or A Mystified Interventions? (Hiiraan Online)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somalia To Implement Harmonized Tax Policy For The First Time Over 27 Years
16 March – Source: Halbeeg News – 468 Words
Somali government is set to carry out fiscal reforms and harmonize tax initiatives to increase sale taxes, after squabbles, the Ministry of Finance confirmed. During weekly Cabinet meeting on Thursday, Minister of Finance Mr. Abdirahman Beileh, said his ministry is planning on harmonizing fiscal policies to raise domestic revenues.
The minister submitted a report on fiscal and economic progress of his ministry achievements’, and plans to reform the taxes to the Cabinet ministers. The ministry had held discussions with the state members of the Federal Government, on the reviving the long-defunct harmonized taxes this month, for the first time since 1991, when the country plunged into civil war, according to Mr. Beileh. “The federal government meeting in Mogadishu produced promising outcomes in which we will build on. We will work together for a better fiscal and economic future for Somalia, and our people,” said Mr. Beileh in a twitter post, after the conclusion of the first meeting on harmonizing taxes which took place on 10th March.
Somali President, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, last week said his government is committed to overcome the problems of tax policy harmonization. The President pointed out that Somalia’s Gross Domestic Product (GPD) has rapidly improved, thanks to the fight against the corruption that gravely ravaged the different departments of the government. ”The GPD of the country for the first time in decades has increased to 7.2% in 2017 down from 4.6%, due to accountability and transparency that was implemented by the government,” Farmaajo said during his speech at the opening of the parliament session last week.
President Farmaajo had called on the public to pay the mandatory taxes to the government. “The public should pay taxes so that we can rebuild our forces to fight against Al-Shabaab. We need to pay the civil servants and our armed forces regularly,” the President urged the public. Last month, Somali Finance Ministry imposed 5% sales tax on imported goods, a move the government aims to boosts the domestic revenues, in a bid to reduce over-reliance on donors for funds and pay the $5.2 billion International debt.
The introduction of the tax led thousands of traders to protest against the tax imposed, prompting serious economic implications for the tax revenue collection systems, according the ministry. Despite those setbacks, during a press conference early this month, Minister Mr. Beileh maintained taxes ought to be paid to enable the government to offer services. Mr. Beileh said the government needed money to hit the target proposed by International Monetary Fund (IMF). “The IMF has given us a target of $41 million through taxes between December and March this year,” Mr. Beileh told the reporters. Last year, Somali parliament approved $274 million budget for 2018, which was higher than that of 2017 of $267 million, a move welcomed by UN.
Somalia Government Bars Politician Warsame From Giving Lecture
15 March – Source: Radio Dalsan – 192 Words
The Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency on Thursday cancelled a planned lecture by politician Abdirahman Warsame titled “Somalia: Current Events in Geopolitical Context”. “Commander of the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) has postponed a lecture where I was to talk about the current political competition in the region, and how it can possibly affect Somalia” he said in a Facebook post. “The management of Sahafi Hotel which was the venue of my lecture notified us, that NISA has ordered the meeting to be postponed” he explained.
Mr. Warsame said, that the management of the hotel was not given the reason for the order. “This action clearly breaks the law of the country” he said. He accused the spy agency NISA of being used to crash on dissenting voices. The former presidential candidate’s home in Mogadishu was raided by NISA agents back December 2017, injuring him and arresting him. Five of the wadajir Party leader’s bodyguards were also killed in that raid. He was released from detention after a week and taken to court to face treasonable charges. However, the court set him free for lack of substantial evidence against him.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Grenade Attack Kills At Least 3 In Northern Somalia
16 March – Source: Xinhuanet – 79 Words
At least three people were killed and two others injured Thursday night in a grenade attack in Bosaso, northern Somalia, police said. Mohamed Jama, a police officer in Bosaso, confirmed the incident on Friday. The attackers hurled hand grenades at security officers at a checkpoint in Bosaso, killing one soldier and two civilians, Jama told Xinhua. No group has claimed responsibility so far. Bosaso has seen several such attacks in recent months, all conducted by the Al-Shabaab militant group.
Online Delivery Startup Gulivery Scales Across Somalia
16 March – Source: Biz Community – 562 Words
Somali online delivery startup Gulivery has already expanded to the capital Mogadishu after its launch in Hargeisa last year, and is planning expansion across East Africa over the next few years. Gulivery has developed a mobile app that allows people to order meals and groceries from restaurants and supermarkets, and have them delivered to their doors by the startup’s delivery partners.
The startup was launched after husband and wife Deeq Mohamed Hassan and Sado Ali Baroot moved back to Hargeisa from London and realised there was a huge gap in the market. “We had to buy lots of stuff for the house and sometimes needed delivery people ourselves, but we could not find any company that covered the last mile,” Deeq said. “Usually, trusted taxi drivers run such errands, but they are too expensive and you don’t always get exactly what you ordered. So we decided to do a quick assessment and we realised that we were not the only ones that wanted such a service and were ready to pay for it. That’s when my wife said “maybe we should start a delivery company”, and the rest is history.”
OPINION, ANALYSIS & CULTURE
“Empowering the government and reviving the basic infrastructures will be the cornerstone and the primary step towards resilience and self-sufficiency. To achieve recovery, the possible areas to reinforce may be: restoration water systems, community empowerment in food production, and development of health/veterinary services.”
Repeated Emergencies In Somalia: A Donor Fatigue Or A Mystified Interventions?
15 March – Source: Hiiraan Online – 769 Words
Nearly three decades, the Somalis endured civil wars and natural disasters, the latter instigated an alternate of drought (scarcity of water) and floods (abundance of water); the ironic mixture of the natural calamities, was exacerbated by deficient infrastructures, lack of decent political support and monotonous aid actions, founded on reactive interventions, without a well thought proactive strategy to curb the frequent calamities.
To put into perspective the dynamics between drought, floods, and the defunct infrastructures; the civil strife incapacitated infrastructures that was necessary for resilience of the community. Boreholes were in short supply, the rivers have lost their depth to silt, and their protective banks eroded, causing alternate of floods and scarcity of water. While ponds have also lost their depth to silt, and thus created water shortage for nomads. The above scenario spells out the vulnerability of Somalis to resist both the dry and wet seasons, a vicious cycle that is not addressed seriously.
On the other hand, the present focus of the Humanitarian Assistance is to provide and maintain relief support for IDPs, in camps in urban centers, without mentioning programmes to tackle the root cause of their vulnerability and encourage the return of IDPs; farmers and nomads who would have otherwise, contributed to food production are kept idle, penniless, and encouraged to join urban dwellers. Succinctly, instead of helping the needy, the aid assistance to IDPs is an opportunity for Aid organizations, to get funding from donors, employ staff, and continue doing the same thing year in, year-out, to maintain the status quo -‘repeated emergency’.
Traditionally, once a calamity strikes, an appeal is made to the donors in order to contribute millions of dollars to alleviate the suffering, on their part, donors provide the funding, while expect their donations will create resilience, and future emergencies will be made a history with their donations. However, donors began to notice the similarity of the humanitarian appeals, causing lack of interest on the donor’s part. According to Pawley-Boyd, donors are becoming desensitized to appeals that are based on same message over and over again. In recent past, a buzzword – ‘donor fatigue’ – was created to camouflage the failures of humanitarian assistance. However, the question is ‘who created the donor fatigue? The beneficiaries themselves or the Humanitarian Organizations? Considering the way interventions are implemented, it is time for Aid Agencies and the press to rephrase the jargon, ‘Donor fatigue’ to ‘Mystified interventions’ and start clearing the confusions by taking their roles seriously.
Nevertheless, emergency response seems to be business as usual – because the subsequent drought intervention is similar with the preceding one – the mantra is ‘life saving’ – and achievements are measured in figures. According to OCHA, Financial Tracking Service, total funding to Somalia in 2016 and 2017 was nearly US$471 million and US$611 million, respectively.
TOP TWEETS
@SRSGKeating: Thanks 2 @ODIdev 4 hosting a gr8 conversation on #Somalia’s progress, prospects & challenges chaired by @mary_harper w @SaraPantuliano, @kemenkhaus &@RAbdiCG. Much emphasis on fundamental need 4 inclusive politics & reductoon of levels of violence #WithSomalia
@DalsanFM: Connecting millions to the lifeline –http://radiodalsan.com/en/
@RAbdiCG: A sobering read on the fraught US-led CT campaign in Somalia, citing top Special Ops commander: “A complicated conflict “Gray Zone” with no clear end-game… good tactics do not fix bad strategy.”
@MohamoudGaildon: The UAE is using #Somaliland as a tool to intimidate #Somalia. It is time Somalia granted unionist Northern communities their rightful recognition and support.@SRSGKeating @M_Farmaajo @UAEmGov @Siad_A@daudedosman @Abukar_Arman @alihwarsame @SadiaAden@MahadYSh @faisalroble19
@Goobjoognews: UAE TO train Somaliland forces under military base deal: Somaliland president –
@HarunMaruf: BREAKING: UAE to train Somaliland forces under military base deal – Somaliland president.
@daudedosman: “An Interim National Procurement Board was established to review all contracts and concessions above the threshold of US$ 2 million in value.” Strengthening Somalia’s Systems Smartly. World Bank
@HIPSINSTITUTE: Somalia’s parliamentarians, executive and regional leaders failed in the past year to institute political stability, which is a vital prerequisite for all the priorities this government has to deliver in its remaining three years.#USSenateHearing
IMAGE OF THE DAY
President, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo met with Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire and Speaker of Parliament Mohamed Osman Jawari at his temporary office in the Ministry of Defence.
Photo: @DalsanFM