March 9, 2017 | Daily Monitoring Report
Ministers’ Accounts Frozen Following PM Khayre´s Orders
09 March – Source: Radio Dalsan – 106 Words
Prime Minister Hassan Khayre has ordered for all accounts belonging to Ministeries frozen. The announcement was made on Wednesday at a meeting between PM Khayre and the current Cabinet of Ministers and Director Generals. According to the Prime Minister the move was to avoid any possible squander of public funds in the transition period. Khayre is yet to come up with his highly anticipated Cabinet. Two weeks ago President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo also froze government transactions from the Central Bank of Somalia.
Key Headlines
- Ministers’ Accounts Frozen Following PM Khayre´s Orders (Radio Dalsan)
- Puntland Asks EU To Reinforce Efforts Against Illegal Foreign Fishing (Goobjoog News)
- A Team Of Health Practitioners Jetted Off To El-Barde To Control Severe Diarrhea Outbreak In The Area (VOA Somali)
- Inside Somalia’s ‘Nightmare’ Hunger Crisis (CNN)
- Somalia Joins The World In Marking International Women’s Day (AMISOM)
- New Banknotes For Somalia (BBC)
- The Somali Constitutional Review Process. Taking Stock. (IDEA)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Puntland Asks EU To Reinforce Efforts Against Illegal Foreign Fishing
09 March – Source: Goobjoog News – 186 Words
Puntland has called on the European Union to bolster efforts at curbing illegal fishing in Somali waters noting foreign trawlers were continually denying locals access to fishing. Puntland Vice President Abdihakin Omar told reporters Thursday his administration was seeking more support from the EU to combat illegal unregulated fishing and dumping of waste in its waters. “I am requesting the EU to help us more in combating illegal fishing, piracy and dumping of waste on our waters,” said Omar.
The EU’s Operation Atalanta has been operating in the Somali waters to deter and prevent acts of piracy and armed robbery off the Somali coast. Somalia has seen increased illegal fishing in the past and experts have warned of a possible resurgence of piracy as local fishermen gang up to deter illegal fishing. In a 2015 report, the campaign group One Earth Future Foundation said illegal foreign fishers catch more than 132,000 tonnes of fish a year, compared to Somalia’s 40,000 tonnes. This, the report warned could lead to return of piracy in the Somali waters.
A Team Of Health Practitioners Jetted Off To El-Barde To Control Severe Diarrhea Outbreak In The Area
09 March – Source: VOA Somali – 114 Words
A team of medical practitioners arrived in the Al-Shabaab-besieged town of El Barde in Bakol where a severe outbreak of watery diarrhea is causing havoc to the local population. The team of three left from Mogadishu in a chartered plane. Speaking to VOA Somali Service, Dr. Asha Omar kalbow, who led the team, said the situation they saw in El Barde was grave, saying that people are dying of the outbreak on daily basis.
Their trip was organized by politicians from the area and was spearheaded by former finance minister Hussein Abdi Halane. The victims are mostly pastoralists affected by the biting drought in the region. The team also handed over drugs to the local health workers in the area. Asha said the biggest challenge was getting access to the area and the only mean of transport possible as for now is air transport.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Inside Somalia’s ‘Nightmare’ Hunger Crisis
09 March – Source: CNN – Video: 02:47 Minutes
Somalia Joins The World In Marking International Women’s Day
09 March – Source: AMISOM – 575 Words
Somalia today joined the rest of the world in taking stock of women’s achievements this past year, during celebrations to mark International Women’s Day. The celebrations were held in the capital Mogadishu and in the federal states, where Somalia’s partners lauded the country for the huge strides it had made in empowering women. “We fought hard to increase women’s political participation, by setting a goal of 30% by ensuring women receive a fair chance in the recent 2016-2017 electoral process,” Somali Minister of Women and Human Rights Development Ms. Zahra Samatar as she enumerated the successes achieved in women’s participation in the country’s political affairs.
The number of women elected to parliament increased from 14-percent in the last parliament to 25-percent currently, placing Somalia on the global map of women friendly countries. “We thank partners for their support in achieving this,” Ms. Asha Mohamud Omar, a member of parliament said. She however lamented that the women legislators still faced challenges in participating fully in decision-making processes. The deputy Special Representative of the AU Commission Chairperson (DSRCC), for Somalia, Lydia Wanyoto announced a plan by AMISOM to embark on a non-military campaign, where women will form peace committees in villages, to break the cycle of youth recruitment in Al-Shabaab.
“The campaign is for every woman to account for their children,” she explained. “What is happening in Somalia is that, there is a lot of recruitment of young children to join al-Shabaab radicalisation using religious channels and other forums. But we can use women to be able to report and have intelligence on where their children are going and who is taking them into this,” said added. The European Union Ambassador to Somalia, Ms. Veronique Lorenzo rooted for more women appointments in the Somali cabinet.
New Banknotes For Somalia
09 March – Source: BBC – Video: 01:21 Minutes
After inaugurating a new President not long ago, Somalia is looking to launch new banknotes. The old ones are being taken out of circulation to tackle counterfeiting. It’s a huge challenge: up to 98% of the local banknotes are fake. Somalia’s getting a helping hand from the International Monetary Fund. It’s offering to help print the new notes. Ally Khan Satchu is a financial and political analyst in Nairobi.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“Given the tremendous complexity and sensitiveness of the Somali constitutional review process, all these bodies and institutions will need to complement and support rather than compete with each other.”
The Somali Constitutional Review Process. Taking Stock.
08 March – Source: IDEA – 2,340 Words
In August 2012, the Somali Provisional Constitution was adopted by a National Constituent Assembly. This adoption followed a politically very contentious and controversial process, the so called “Roadmap Process”, which, upon significant pressure by the international donor community engaged in Somalia, managed to bring a group of national and regional stakeholders together, to negotiate a new constitution and thereby end the years of transitional governance in Somalia from 2000 to 2012 (named after the Transitional National Charter of 2000 and the Transitional Federal Charter of 2004).
Due to the fact that despite earlier commitments and constitutional requirements, a public referendum to finally approve the constitutional text could not be organized, it was agreed that the new constitution would only be provisionally adopted by a National Constituent Assembly consisting of 825 representatives from all sections of the Somali society (clan representatives, business-community, civil society representatives, elders, women, youth, etc.).
As the drafters of the Somali Provisional Constitution could not agree on a number of crucial state-building questions and thus considered their work as incomplete, they provided for a comprehensive constitutional review process. This review process, as outlined in Chapter 15 of the Somali Provisional Constitution, was tied to the first term of the Somali Federal Parliament, and scheduled to end after four years, i.e. in August 2016.
In this time, it was expected that the Somali Federal Parliament with the help of a Provisional Constitution Review and Implementation Oversight Committee (OC) and an Independent Provisional Constitution Review and Implementation Commission (ICRIC) would have reviewed the Somali Provisional Constitution, adopted changes with a two-thirds majority of both Houses and presented the reviewed constitutional text to the Somali people for final approval in a public referendum.
However, these timelines could not be kept. After a long inception phase, the constitutionally mandated review institutions of OC and ICRIC were only set up in December 2012 and June 2014 respectively. Only in March 2015 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the OC, ICRIC and the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs, defining roles and responsibilities in the constitutional review process. And only by November 2015, OC and ICRIC agreed on a joint approach of preparing different options for the amendment of the constitution so as to facilitate subsequent political consultations and negotiations.
Despite all challenges, in the end, OC and ICRIC managed to review the Somali Provisional Constitution comprehensively. Language and technical issues such as cross-reference errors or mistakes in numbering were rectified and the Somali language improved significantly. Substantively, three different options were prepared, mainly concerning different models and ideas for the set-up of the Somali Federal Government under the new federal state structure provided for by the Somali Provisional Constitution.
TOP TWEETS
@allafrica: Ministers Accounts Frozen Following PM Khayre´s Orders: https://goo.gl/dM6cm8
@UNDPEU : With EU funds, @UNDP is helping victims of sexual and gender-based violence in #Somalia: http://bit.ly/
@InterpeaceECA : Interpeace mourns Abdirahman Raghe, for long a pillar of our #Somali #peacebuilding
@xasanmmc : Source: #Ethiopia appointed new #Ambassador and special envoy for #Somalia
@MowliidAhmed : Somali Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) elects a president today in #Mogadishu,the capital city of #Somalia
@somalipop : Somaliland presidential minister begs Farmaajo admin to respect base deal with HSM http://dlvr.it/NZgPGC #
@HassanIstiila: #UPDATE
IMAGE OF THE DAY
We will safeguard the rights of our women and ensure their full participation in our nation building said Prime Minister Khayre while addressing the audience at the International Women’s Day celebrations in Mogadishu.
Photo: @SomaliPM