November 29, 2018 | Daily Monitoring Report
A Suspect ‘Who Plotted’ Deadly Hotel Attack Is Arrested
29 November – Source: Garowe Online – 215 Words
The National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) has today apprehended a suspect in the deadly Sahafi hotel attack in Mogadishu on 9th November 2018. In a twitter post, NISA confirmed on Thursday that one of the masterminds of the triple car bombings at Sahafi hotel had been detained during a covert operation in the capital. NISA did not offer further details.
The Al-Shabaab group, a dangerous Al Qaeda ally in East Africa that is fighting to topple Somali government, claimed responsibility for the attack, which left more than 50 people dead, including the hotel owner and security guards: “In a carefully designed and skillfully executed operation, the security forces nabbed one of the masterminds of attack on Sahafi hotel on November 9,” NISA tweeted.
The spy agency promised to bring the suspect to justice. NISA has in the past tweeted similar security alerts regarding the arrest of Al-Shabaab suspects, as the Islamist group continues to stage deadly car bomb attacks in the capital. NISA is currently operating without a director, after the agency’s boss, Hussein Mohamed Hussein, resigned last month to vie for presidency in the South West state elections, slated for December 5th. The agency is currently headed by Fahad Yasin, a former Villa Somalia Chief of Staff, who is serving as deputy director.
Key Headlines
- A Suspect ‘Who Plotted’ Deadly Hotel Attack Is Arrested (Garowe Online)
- Somaliland Poll Agency Delays Parliamentary And Municipality Election (Halbeeg News)
- Somali Migrants Return Home After Detention In Uganda And Tanzania (Mareeg News)
- AMISOM Trains Somalia’s South West State Finance Executives On Strategic Fiscal Management (AMISOM)
- Somali Parliament Apologizes For ‘Wrong Report’ On Missing US $40 Million (African Exponent)
- Is Middle Eastern Rivalry Good for Africa? (The National Interest)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somaliland Poll Agency Delays Parliamentary And Municipality Election
29 November – Source: Halbeeg News – 207 Words
Somaliland Electoral Commission has postponed elections for Lower House members and councilors, which were slated for March 29th, early next year. In an official communication, the electoral body explained the delay of the parliamentary and municipality elections was due to lack of cooperation between the electoral body and political parties, amongst other challenges.
“Lack of cross-party cooperation, especially on the part of Wadani political party, which earlier this year (March 2018) declared to have stopped all its working relations with the National Electoral Commission. There is also a lack of understanding among parties regarding the holding of the upcoming parliamentary and local government’s election,” reads the statement.
The electoral body also reiterated another factor, which led to the decision to postpone the elections, as the longstanding contentions on the issue of allocation of seats in the House of Representatives. The quota reserved for women and minority groups is yet to be agreed upon among other regularities of the electoral laws. According to the statement, members of the international community have also declared that they will not be able to fund the additional costs of the election. The decision to delay the elections and the resultant burden will therefore — regrettably — fall in the hands of the Somaliland people.
Somali Migrants Return Home After Detention In Uganda And Tanzania
28 November – Source: Mareeg News – 170 Words
Fourteen Somali migrants voluntarily returned to the country in the capital of Mogadishu on Wednesday. The migrants, who were incarcerated in Uganda and Tanzania holding centers, arrived at the airport in Mogadishu, courtesy of transportation organized by the United Nations’ migration agency.
Wednesday’s special chartered flight was provided by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in collaboration with the Uganda, Tanzania and Somali governments and with funding from the European Union. Working with the IOM and United Nations Human Rights Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) will oversee their resettlement and reintegration in the country.
Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire welcomed the repatriation of Somali migrants. “We continue to strive to secure the freedom of Somalis stranded or incarcerated abroad and facilitate their safe return home”, he said. IOM has tracked more than 660,000 migrants in Libya, where they are exposed to numerous risks, including smuggling, trafficking, kidnapping, abuse, detention and torture. The true number of migrants there could be closer to one million people
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
AMISOM Trains Somalia’s South West State Finance Executives On Strategic Fiscal Management
28 November – Source: AMISOM – 478 Words
At least twenty-three (23) officials from Somalia’s South West State’s Finance ministry are undergoing skills enhancement training in public procurement, taxation and strategic fiscal management, at the Kenya School Revenue Administration, under a capacity building program facilitated by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), in partnership with the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).
The training which kicked off on Tuesday in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, aims to skill the ministry staff with appropriate public procurement processes and revenue collection mechanisms. “As AMISOM, we believe this training will build and organize (your) systems, bolster your knowledge and aspects that supports your mandate,” Dr. Ododa Opiyo, the Mission’s Head of Stabilization and Early Recovery Programme said in his opening remarks.
He hoped that the training would enhance the state’s “financial independence”, in revenue collection and procurement. The South West State is one of Somalia’s five Federal Member States. Mr. Ali Abdi Adan, the State’s Director-General in the Ministry of Finance, said the training would hugely impact on the state’s revenue sourcing, procurement and fiscal governance. “We consider this training very important and we will make sure we utilize the skills and knowledge acquired here, to build our capacity,” he pledged.
The acting Commissioner of Kenya School of Revenue Administration, Dr. Fred Mugambi, emphasized the vital role taxes play in nation-building. He asked the Somali officials to strive to be “public servants of integrity and loyal to the government”. To underpin the training’s importance in revenue collection, the KRA official cited a World Bank report that indicated that while Somalia’s public expenditure expanded five times between 2012 and last year, the domestic revenue as a share of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was a mere 2.8 per cent. The workshop he added, was therefore to enhance their “knowledge and skills to increase revenue”, and resource mobilization.
The capacity enhancement training is part of AMISOM’s mandate to strengthen Somalia’s governance institutions, during the transition period. AMISOM has also supported the rebuilding of legislative and oversight skills of Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Federal Member States, through various trainings in Kenya and elsewhere.
Somali Parliament Apologizes For ‘Wrong Report’ On Missing US $40 Million
28 November – Source: African Exponent – 304 Words
The Somali parliament have eaten their words and apologized to the finance ministry for the ‘mistake by house finance committee’ that over USD 40 million was missing the country’s accounts. What really happened in Somalia? Last week, reports from Somalia claimed that members of the parliament debated on a case of missing USD 40 Million which could not be accounted for by the finance ministry. According to the reports, USD 20 Million out of the missing USD 40 Million was donated by the Saudi Arabian government to fund the 2019 Budget.
The members of parliament had demanded explanations from the Finance Minister, Dr. Abdirahman Duale, who appeared before the house in company of the chairperson of the Somali Central Bank. However, in what certainly is a twist of events, the Deputy Speaker of the Somali Lower House of parliament, Hon. Mahad Awad, has tendered an apology to the finance ministry for the report tabled and debated on the floor of the house last Saturday.
Hon. Awad said the report was a mistake by house finance committee – who submitted the report for deliberation. “I want to apologize in that debate was tabled in the house without first submitted to the house business committee,” he said. The Honourable Deputy Speaker also added that there is no money missing from 2019 budget as previously announced by the house fiancé committee and some members of the parliament.
“The parliament didn’t say [over] USD 40 M is unaccounted for [the committee said it], so we want to apologies to the people and ministry of finance,” he added. He went further to say that because the debate in the house on the missing funds from the fiancé ministry circulated like wildfire and aroused criticism from citizens and allies, the house will not table the issue again.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“While the UAE and Saudi Arabia were able to increase their influence in Africa, obtaining rights to use airspace and develop ports between 2015 and 2018, today Turkey, an ally of Qatar, is breaking new ground as well. In Somalia and at the Sudanese port of Suakin, Turkey is putting down roots.”
Is Middle Eastern Rivalry Good for Africa?
28 November – Source: The National Interest – 2205 Words
In mid-June the pro-government Turkish daily Yeni Safak ran an article accusing the United Arab Emirates of “swimming in dangerous waters” by expanding its role in the Horn of Africa. Excoriating the UAE for its role in Africa doesn’t come in a vacuum. In March Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote that “we want to walk with Africa as a new world order is established.” In the wake of the Gulf crisis that began in June of 2017 between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and which has pitted a Turkish-Qatar alliance against Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, influence in Africa is increasingly important to both sides.
This has wider regional implications and is important as Washington also engages with Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Ankara. With Yemen ceasefire talks scheduled for December, the wider role of the Horn of Africa, which has played a key role in the Yemen conflict, will continue to reverberate among Middle Eastern states. The intervention in Yemen, launched by Saudi Arabia and its allies in 2015, has increasingly drawn in east African countries. Initially Riyadh and its allies wanted to push the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels back from the port of Aden and any threats they might make either to Saudi Arabia or to the Bab el-Mandeb straits which see 3.8 million barrels of oil pass a day.
In the early days of the war, Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki visited Saudi Arabia and Eritrea opened its airspace and port of Assab for the UAE and other members of the Saudi-led coalition. Eritrea, which is just 30 km from Yemen, received fuel and financial support for its aid. The Saudi coalition was encouraged by Eritrea to use the Hanish islands and the UAE sought a thirty year lease to use Assab.
The United Nations also said Eritrea had deployed troops to Yemen. Sudan joined the war effort in Yemen, sending hundreds of troops according to a report by the International Crisis Group. Somalia indicated the coalition could use its airspace, and Somaliland, an autonomous region in Somalia, said it would rent out the port of Berbera. Djibouti allowed use of its airspace as well and also agreed to host refugees from the Yemen conflict. The Saudi King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSRelief) opened facilities in Djibouti for the refugees. Troops for the war in Yemen also came from faraway Senegal.
The increasing involvement of Horn of Africa countries in Yemen and Gulf politics, particularly Djibouti, has larger implications. The United States has a military base in Djibouti which supports several thousand personnel, and China, France, Italy and Japan also have bases located there. Secretary of Defense James Mattis visited Djibouti in April of 2017. The immediate impact of the war in Yemen was pressure brought to reduce any connections that Sudan and other countries in the Horn had with Iran.
TOP TWEETS
@RadioErgo: #SOMALIA: Perennial clan clashes in #Somaliahave taken an enormous toll on the whole of #Somali society, claiming an unknown number of lives and robbing families of livelihoods.
@Halbeeg_News: Somaliland Poll agency delays parliamentary and municipality election https://en.halbeeg.com/2018/
@RadioErgo: The piped water project was realized by Puntland authorities, in partnership with the UN children’s fund UNICEF, and local firm Mahigan Water Company.
@DSeanPaterson: Today in #Hargeisa the UN Joint Programme for Youth Employment conducted a knowledge sharing session for local stakeholders. This session, led by @UNDPSomaliaidentified key success factors that anchored a @ITCILO training session on Promoting Youth Employment in Fragile Settings.
@taakulosom: Today @taakulosom attended National Coordination Meeting for #Anti_FGM/C Stakeholders. It was discussed opportunties and challenges for #Anti_FGM/C bill and why civil societies efforts does not made sagnificance acheivement to end #FGM.
@SomaliPM: We are happy to welcome back home 14 of our nationals who were incarcerated in Uganda & Tanzania. We continue to strive to secure the freedom of Somalis stranded or incarcerated abroad and facilitate their safe return home.
#NabadIyoNolol
@radiogarowe: #Somalia Intel agency @HSNQ_NISA says a suspect has been nabbed in connection with the Nov 9 triple car bombs at Sahafi hotel in #Mogadishu that left over 50 dead.
@sntvnews1: The prime minister H.E. @HassanAKhaire s’ remarks during a dinner where he hosted a delegation from AU and the leadership from the troop contributing countries.
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Mogadishu Mayor Abdirahman Omar Osman with US Ambassador to Somalia Donald Y. Yamamoto and head of USAID Jeffrey Bakken, in Mogadishu.
Photo: @engyarisow