Millions of Dollars Missing in Somaliland’s Annual Budget

[Siciid1986]

Hargeisa(Horn) -Accusations of corruption and misuse of power has always been on the increase since President Rayaale took the oath of office in 2002. The increasing allegations have made the populace to lose confidence in the present government. The incumbent President has totally failed in tackling this mess in the eight years he has been on the throne.

 

President Rayaale is well known to repudiation and condemnation whenever his government is criticized. He always uses the opposition as a scapegoat pointing out that they mislead and divide the public, to change the focus off the criticisms.

 

A detailed report which contained the amount of money embezzled by the current government was presented by a senior KULMIYE official. Referring to an early article he published on 5 May 2010, Eng. Mohamed Hashi has again raised the government’s embezzlement of public funds which could have been utilized in developing social services and infrastructure.

 

He estimated that, besides the rampant corruption practices in the government, over twenty five million dollars go into the pockets of the senior government officials which don’t appear on the yearly budgets presented to the national assembly. Eng. Hashi presented in depth analysis of the corruption in the revenue collection organs of the government and in particular the customs department, which its revenues make 78% of this year’s budget.

 

He presented the details of the revenues that did not appear on the budget while president Rayale has been in office from 2002 to 2009 totaling $227,606,700 which means that $28,400,000 of tax payers’ money is lost to the corrupt government each year.

 

 

 

Commenting on what his Kulmiye party will do if elected to lead the country, Eng. Hashi stated that apart from implementing it’s manifesto Kulmiye will utilize this un accounted for money to spend on building four full equipped Technical Colleges and four hospitals with 100 bed capacity each, which can cost the exact amount of money stolen from the national treasury in one year. Meanwhile he reminded the citizens to carefully evaluate whether the president and his government have honored their oath of office.

 

 

 

On the other hand, our Somali edition Geeska Afrika contacted minister of finance Hussein Ali Du’ale (Awil) to seek the government’s response to these allegations and Mr.Awil, the finance minister has totally refuted them and insisted that there is no single shilling that goes missing since the national revenues are under his personal supervision. He said that 60% of the budget is allocated to maintaining national security, an indication as to why the government can not spend much on social services and infrastructures. Responding to a question regarding the public funds embezzlement, the minister said “Mohamed Hashi is a friend I have known many years whose utterance I am always shocked with, all that he is talking about is a mere falsehood. I have asked him many times to go with us to Berbera and see our records and find out the amount of revenues we collect and how we spend it. I don’t know what makes him talk about such lies he is used to.”

 

The minister also talked about the on going campaigns and the chances of the ruling UDUB party to win another term to lead the country, saying that he was quite optimistic the people of Somaliland will vote for his party for its good record on governance and maintaining peace and tranquility in the country.

 

Answering on why the civil servants have not been paid their salaries for the last two months, the minister stated it was a technical matters caused by the delayed budget endorsement by the national assembly.

 

http://www.geeska.net/english/somaliland/59-millions-of-dollars-missing-in-somalilands-annual-budget .html