April 8, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report
Four People Arrested In Mogadishu As Mortar Shells Hit City
08 April – Source: Shabelle News – 129 Words
Forces from the Federal Government have arrested four people linked to Thursday’s shelling of Hamar Jajab and Waaberi districts of Mogadishu.The Benadir police commissioner, Ali Bare Hirsi ( Ali Gaab), who spoke to the media, said the four were arrested on board a car near Maka Al Mukarama road of Mogadishu.
The commissioner said two out of the four suspects were arrested while injured and they have been taken to hospital. Mortar shells that landed in the districts of Waaberi and Hamar Jajab killed at least two people while the injured are said to be more than 10. Meanwhile, officials of the Al -Shabaab group have said the shelling targeted the presidential palace, Villa Somalia. This shelling comes within days after similar mortar attack in the neighbourhood of Villa Somalia caused huge damages.
Key Headlines
- Four People Arrested In Mogadishu As Mortar Shells Hit City (Shabelle News)
- Governor Of Benadir Region Refuses To Implement Orders From The Auditor General’s Office On Collection Of Rates (Goobjooge.com)
- Somalia Finance Minister Attends Arab League Summit (Radio Muqdisho)
- Somali Piracy Is Down Not Out( AFP/Daily Nation)
- UK ‘Secretly Aiding’ Terror Attacks In Yemen (The Star)
- Kenyans’ Goodwill Biggest KDF Asset (Daily Nation)
- Puntland And The Somali Government Reach an Election Deal. What’s Next? (Somalia Newsroom)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Governor Of Benadir Region Refuses To Implement Orders From The Auditor General’s Office On Collection Of Rates
07 April – Source: Goobjooge.com – 138 Words
The regional administration of Benadir region will not honor directives from the Auditor General’s office stopping its officers from collecting land rates from Mogadishu residents.Speaking at a press briefing he held in the capital city, Governor Yussuf Hussein Jimale said his administration has so far collected $400,000 which will be used to tarmac Wadnaha Street in Mogadishu. The administrator brushed aside recent orders from the Auditor General barring his administration from collecting any rates and levies from area residents.
This comes days after Goobjoog News carried a report detailing how a privately owned company was contracted to collect the rates from city residents with a 49% share of the income going to its coffers without it offering any tangible services in return. Many local residents have also questioned the legality of most levies charged by the regional administration.
Somalia Finance Minister Attends Arab League Summit
08 April – Source: Radio Muqdisho – 116 Words
The Somali Minister for Finance , Mohamed Adan (Farkeeti), and a delegation he is leading have attended the annual Arab Ministers of Finance summit. The summit, which was organised by the Arab league, was attended by Finance ministers from various Arab countries.
Among the issues discussed in the summit was how to strengthen investment with in the Arab league and the economic development among Arab nations. In his speech the Somali Minister outlined the current status of the Somali economy, the challenges and how to address the challenges. The Minister further highlighted the role Arab countries can play in Somalia’s economic recovery efforts and how they can help in the development of infrastructure and job creation.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Somali Piracy Is Down, Not Out
08 April – Source:Daily Nation/ AFP – 822 Words
The pirates who once ruled the seas off Somalia are little more than a memory now, but while they are forgotten they are not gone.The trial in Paris of seven men accused of killing a French sailor and kidnapping his wife during the height of Somali piracy in 2011 is a reminder of the deadly terror the pirates once spread.However, experts and former pirates alike warn the scourge may yet return.”There hasn’t been a proper pirate attack on a commercial vessel in over two years,” said John Steed, Horn of Africa manager for the US-based non-profit Oceans Beyond Piracy. “But the guys haven’t gone away and nothing’s changed on the ground.”
Anti-piracy patrols by international warships and armed guards aboard commercial vessels which continue to chug fast and far past the Somali coast, have suppressed piracy, not stopped it.The last wave of piracy began in 2005 and reached its peak six years later when Somali pirate gangs attacked 237 vessels and, at year’s end, held 11 vessels and 216 hostages, earning on average more than $2 million (1.8 million euros) for every ship ransomed. Back then the total economic cost of Somali piracy was estimated at $6.9 billion (6.1 billion euros).Much of that cost was down to counter-piracy actions including the deployment of warships, the extra fuel burned by vessels racing through the pirate ranges and the hiring of private armed security teams aboard ships. These costly measures worked and Somali piracy dropped off dramatically so that by 2013 no commercial vessels were successfully boarded.Now some Somali pirates have turned to a new activity, fishing, and are finding themselves up against a new enemy: foreign trawlers.
UK ‘Secretly Aiding’ Terror Attacks In Yemen
08 April – Source: The Star – 1430 Words
Britain has secretly been helping the US to carry out drone strikes in Yemen for six years, it was claimed last night.Special Forces are said to have systematically co-operated with America to take out al Qaeda operatives with targeted strikes.An investigation has claimed that Britain provided vital intelligence to draw up ‘kill lists’ which were routinely used to carry out missions – and failed to tell the public.Campaign group Reprieve said that it showed “beyond dispute’” that the UK was working “hand in glove” with the Americans to kill in secret.
The US government began to use drones for assassinations in Pakistan and Afghanistan after the September 11attacks in 2001 but their use has since spread around the world. The programme, dubbed “America’s secret war”, is credited with weakening al Qaeda but also killed hundreds of civilians and fueled a hatred of the West.According to Vice News, which spoke to former officials, politicians and diplomats, Britain’s role in US drone strikes in Yemen dates back to 2010.The UK has good intelligence in Yemen and passed on the location of al Qaeda operatives to the Americans, who sent up a drone.Britain’s involvement has been controversial and the subject of legal challenges.
Kenyans’ Goodwill Biggest KDF Asset
07 April – Source: Daily Nation – 1430 Words
The Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) has termed Kenyans’ support to the soldiers its biggest asset.Chief of Defence Forces General Samson Mwathethe said their operations in war torn Somalia has earned the forces goodwill from Kenyans, which they do not take for granted.“The biggest asset that KDF has today is the goodwill support that we have received from the people of Kenya and this has been earned through professionalism in our operations in Somalia,” said Gen Mwathethe yesterday.
The general spoke at the Specialists and Special Duty Officers Cadets commissioning parade at the Kenya Military Academy in Lanet, Nakuru.He was accompanied by Commanders Lieutenant-General Leonard Ngondi, (Kenya Army), Major-General Samuel Thuita (Kenya Air Force) and Maj-Gen Levi Mughalu (Kenya Navy), Defence Principal Secretary Kirimi Kaberia and the Academy’s Commandant, Maj-Gen George Owinow.
Gen Mwathethe said KDF will do everything possible to guard the respect and confidence it has earned among Kenyans and the region by remaining professional in its operations.At the same time, he said the goodwill had spread far and wide due to the high discipline of Kenya troops serving in various civil authorities across the country and at other engagements, including UN peacekeeping operations.He urged the graduands to use their training to diligently discharge their duties in a professional manner.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Therefore, it is interesting that the Somali government is ostensibly bound with the expectation that it should be able to hold nationwide OPOV in a matter of years. In any case, there are other electoral options besides the 4.5 system and OPOV, and those certainly should be explored between now and 2020,”
Puntland And The Somali Government Reach an Election Deal. What’s Next?
07 April – Source: Somalia Newsroom – 1430 Words
This week, the Somali government and Puntland agreed on a basic framework for elections. The deal comes after months of disagreement between the government and regional leaders on how Somalia could hold a transition process at the end of the government’s mandate this year after the efforts to implement a one person-one vote system were put on hold.The internationally-backed agreement lays out some (but not all) of the details on how Somalia will elect its next parliament, whose members are to choose the next president.
There is still substantial bureaucracy to the process. Even though Somalia’s 2016 transition plan does not employ a one person-one vote (OPOV) system, it will still be difficult to maintain a political consensus on how to move forward on many technical tasks that have yet to be defined. For example, there is no date or timeline on when any of these processes will occur before the government’s mandate ends later this year. This speaks volumes about the amount of work that needs to be done.
As a result, there is still a risk the transition process will be delayed unless stakeholders have a laser-like focus in the aftermath of what international diplomats have hailed as a “historic” deal.Under the agreement, Somalia is to never hold a national political election using the 4.5 clan formula and is to implement an OPOV electoral system in 2020.This is an ambitious clause that would require Somalia to exponentially increase progress on political and technical tasks in the next four years, despite very slow and contentious efforts to form federal states and review the provisional constitution in the last four years.Holding OPOV elections in part requires a census to get details on the voting population, voter education and registration, and a consensus among federal and regional political leaders on elections laws and protocols.
When the international community funded a population estimation survey in October 2014, virtually every regional leader rejected the data as “too low” for their region — probably because each region’s size would have huge implications for its potential political power under an eventual OPOV system. The fight over a proper census would be even more contested, and this is only one part of a complex multi-faceted process to implement OPOV.For further perspective, since Puntland’s establishment in 1998, the region has never held OPOV elections and a combination of violence, spoilers, and technical glitches detailed attempts to do so for local polls in 2013. There are not many strong indications that Puntland has made significant progress in being able to use OPOV for local or regional elections by the time President Abdiweli Gaas’s term ends in 2019.
TOP TWEETS
@UKinSomalia:UK is pleased to be working with several partners #Somalia in improving maternal, & new-born health#WorldHealthDay
@MinisterHashi :1/2 I am appalled beyond description by z alleged killing of #Somali citizens 4 body parts in #Egypt.#Somalia StopOrganTrafficking
@Aynte:So proud of @Imaan_Elman, a brave soldier. She’s a great role model for girls and young women in #Somalia. #WITW
@amisomsomalia:The #CIMIC training is key for management of civil-military operations in the delivery of humanitarian aid in#Somalia. #OCHA
@AlinoorMB :#Somali fishermen grumble about foreign trawlers involved in illegal fishing, threaten to take up armshttp://bit.ly/23h4Eg0 #Somalia
IMAGE OF THE DAY
The Civil-Military Coordination (CIMIC) training for officers drawn from all sectors has today began in Mogadishu. The #CIMIC training is key for management of civil-military operations in the delivery of humanitarian aid in Somalia.
Photo: AMISOM.