Make somalia a Priority by PM Sharmarke

[Kelya_Xariif]

Make Somalia a Priority By OMAR A.A. SHARMARKE

Published: January 19, 2010

 

Last month, a Somali man who had lived in Denmark dressed himself in women’s clothes, positioned himself at a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu and then blew himself up. He killed 22 people, including three government ministers and many young medical graduates and professors, who had hoped to dedicate their lives to the alleviation of suffering in Somalia.

 

The terrible events of Dec. 3 reverberated around the world. Somali doctors, information technology and engineering graduates, alongside their families, began the morning full of hope and pride, yet many were not to see the sun set that day. They were among the brightest and the best of Somalia, and so were the ministers who lost their lives.

 

But as the recent events in Aarhus, Denmark, Mogadishu and over the skies of Detroit on Dec. 25 show, the current situation in Somalia and across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen not only threatens the lives of Somalis, but also people beyond its borders.

 

However, Somalia is not the ultimate failed state of popular perception. Its people are resilient and manage to survive in conditions that are probably well beyond the imagination of most readers. In Mogadishu, a city of two million, people carry on, despite the fighting, the shelling, the displacement. Over 100 Somali-led reconciliation processes have taken place at local and regional levels since 1991 — and they’ve proved the basis for stability in Somaliland, Puntland and Galmudug state in central Somalia.

 

While Somali reconciliation and mediation efforts will be the key to sustainable peace and stability, the international community — including the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the African Union, the Arab League, the European Union and the United Nations — has an important role to play. Somalia and Yemen must be properly on the agenda at the London conference at the end of this month.

 

As 2010 unfolds, our collective vision should be to see the beginnings of a secure, stable and prosperous Somalia, at peace with itself and its neighbors, where its citizens can go about their lives in safety and provide for their families with confidence and dignity. Let us strive for a resurgent, tolerant society, built on respect for traditional Somali cultural and religious values.

 

The Transitional Federal Government, as its name suggests, is a temporary structure for developing the environment necessary to achieve this objective. It is a transitional mechanism that will enable the people to decide for themselves how they want to be governed, free from outside interference and coercion.

 

The transitional government’s principle purpose is to prepare the way for the establishment of legitimate and accountable public institutions. (We have already taken the initiative and hired Price Waterhouse Coopers to ensure the accountability of international donor funds.) These institutions will form the basis of a stable, representative government that can begin to alleviate the trauma of the last 20 years.

 

We will achieve this by building professional, representative security forces; creating transparent and accountable public institutions based on the principles of civic responsibility and good governance; developing a fair and impartial judicial system; and increasing economic opportunity through investment, training, health and education.

 

Given the complex and extremely difficult circumstances that recent events have so graphically illustrated, achieving all this will be an extraordinary challenge. It will require the combined effort of the whole Somali people, as well as assistance from outside. Only in partnership with all Somalis and the support of the international community will success be possible. It will take time, determination and patience but it can be done. Let us all take up this challenge. Let 2010 be the start of something new.

 

Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke is prime minister of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/opinion/20iht-edsomalia.html

[Kelya_Xariif]

There is no Circular Logic in Honesty

By. Nur Bahal

January 21, 2010

 

Your Excellency, Mr. Prime Minister,

 

I am a member of the Diaspora that zealously supports the TFG whose Prime Minister you are. I support it not because it is doing a fantastic job, but because of the alternatives out there, it is the only one that can be supported with a semblance of good conscience. With that Diaspora, I share the hope and desire to see a peaceful and prosperous Somalia in our lifetime. I also have a lot of respect for the responsibilities that you have taken upon yourself to see that such can be achieved. Yet, your letter on the New York Times has left a bitter taste in my mouth.

 

 

 

 

It is propaganda rhetoric, similar to those written before by Ould Abdalla, designed to anesthetize the diaspora and extinguish their wails for a proactive government that harvests the goodwill of its people and leads them from dejection and abject poverty to stability and prosperity.

 

Allow me to shed light on a few points. To begin with, it has been confirmed that the man from Denmark was not the one who dressed himself like a woman and exploded himself at the graduation ceremony. Pictures of him sitting at the ceremony dressed as a regular man have been found. And Pictures of his dead body still dressed in the same clothes have been found. Your government in its first news release has circulated the pictures of the dead body of the young man.

 

Did your government follow up on the information? Frankly, I doubt it!

 

This is an indication of how your government has failed to implement a consistent information network which will not only save your government from embarrassment but will also help it in decisions against the evil groups you say to be fighting. Your government has often resorted to reckless announcements and fishy press releases. It does not go the extra mile to get the factual, correct and reliable information. And you know what, Mr. Prime Minister, unreliable information comes from unreliable sources. Is that what your government is? Unreliable? Well after so long on the job, it has yet to proof itself of reliability!

 

Your Excellency, it was the government’s responsibility to ensure the safety and security of the graduation ceremony. So far, neither you nor the President has taken any responsibility for your shortcomings. Instead, you are constantly pointing the finer at the opposition groups in utter disregard for the fact that your government’s fault and failure to guarantee the security of the few blocks in Mogadishu that you control.

 

You have said that the TFG’s principle purpose is to “… prepare the way for the establishment of legitimate and accountable public institutions. (We have already taken the initiative and hired Price Waterhouse Coopers to ensure the accountability of international donor funds.)”.

 

First, hiring a firm that tracks the accountability of the international donations has absolutely nothing to do with your government’s ability and capacity to establish legitimate and accountable public institutions. The legitimacy and accountability of public institutions is a result of the efforts of the government and the efficiency and knowledge of the staff that run these institutions. I am sorry but a foreign company tracking donations cannot create such an atmosphere.

 

Secondly, of all the international accounting firms that your government could have hired, Pricewaterhouse Cooper should have been the least to be considered for the job. Take a look at how many scandals and lawsuits they have been involved in and you tell me, Mr. Prime Minister, if that polished image that you give of PwC is still intact in your eyes unless you are wearing tainted glasses.

 

Below are a few of the legal troubles that PwC was involved in in the last few years. I left the reference numbers in there intentionally so that they could be cross-referenced. These same events have been widely reported on many rebuttable media. I also left the reporting language the same and hereby give credit to Answers.com, kycbs.net, Reutors, New York Times and knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

 

Legal Troubles of Price Waterhouse in the 1990s and 2000s:

 

1. A protracted battle over the company's audit of Bank of Credit and Commerce International ended in 1995 with a payment of $200 million, significantly less than the $11 billion sought by the creditors of the collapsed bank. In addition to hefty settlements, the suits led to (1)soaring insurance costs for the accounting firms. By the mid-1990s, many insurers refused to even cover the auditing practices of the Big Six firms, forcing Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse to set aside money to cover themselves.

2. In July 2007, PwC agreed to pay $225 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by shareholders of Tyco International Ltd. over a multibillion-dollar accounting fraud.[38]

3. Recently, PwC was criticised[39][40][41][42][43][44], along with the promoters of Satyam, an Indian IT firm listed on the NYSE, in a $1.5 billion fraud. PwC has written a letter to the board of directors of Satyam that its audit may be rendered "inaccurate and unreliable" due to the disclosures made by Satyam's (ex) Chairman.[46] PwC's U.S. arm "was the reviewer for the U.S. filings for Satyam."[47] Consequently, lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. with PwC as a defendant.

4. India's accounting standards agency ICAI is investigating partners of PwC for professional negligence[40] in the now-defunct Global Trust Bank Ltd. case of 2007.

5. PwC was also associated with the accounting scandal at DSQ Software[54] in India.

6. In July 2006, PwC’s Japanese affiliate Chuo Aoyama was handed a two-month ban[40].

7. Following the Satyam scandal, the Mumbai-based Small Investor Grievances Association (SIGA) has requested the Indian stock market regulator SEBI to ban PwC permanently and seize its assets in India alleging few more scandals like "Ketan Parekh stock manipulations."[55]

8. The Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board, which regulates the profession in the UK, announced an inquiry in July 2009 into PwC's auditing of Cattles, the struggling sub-prime lender that failed to keep track of its bad debts.[56]

9. PricewaterhouseCoopers agreed to pay $97.5 million to the state of Ohio to settle a class-action lawsuit on behalf of investors in troubled insurer American International Group, which uses PwC as its independent auditor.

10. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has made an out-of-court settlement with shareholders of e-district who alleged the accountancy giant had failed to discharge its legal responsibilities.

 

Should I continue Mr. Prime Minister? I think you get the picture. Companies do make mistakes. However, mistakes rarely fall into as regular a pattern as the above cases clearly indicate – auditing designed to perpetuate fraud and malpractice. My question to you is; who introduced your government to PwC? Was it Oulad Abdalla? Or was it the managers of Project Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya? Excuse me but I am only taking a wild guess! I know that our nation has been used as a project for the last 20 years and I have a premonition that the PwC audit contract is a continuation. But it is sad that your government is implicated in this. If you like, Mr. Prime Minister, you can claim ignorance. But, then, I too will claim that through ignorance you failed your duties by taking gratification in ignorance over the prudence of hard work and caution. Your government, in all honesty, should have done the leg work. The shady signature of the sea pact with Kenya and then this? Sir, with all do respect, your government may be the wholesaler in Project Somalia.

 

PwC is not the only telling sore spot of your government. Lately, I was wondering if you and the President are on the same page at all. You signed a deal with Puntland only to be repealed by the President. You and the President are outside the country more than you are in it, often traveling expensively with a large entourage. Your government has yet to do anything for the displaced unfortunate Somalis who look up to you for help. Whether it be Mogadishu or Beletwein, your government is not visible in helping its unfortunate subjects. I have to mention Beletwein, specially, where the current war with the forces of the devil has caused an unthinkable suffering, your government is invisible. The people of Beletwein, who welcomed your government after it was elected in Djibouti so that the President could show the world that there is a spot besides a few blocks of Mogadishu where he is supported are now bearing the brunt of bloodshed without your government, yet again.

 

Your government lacks vision and foresight and you look to foreign organizations to translate the culture, the cries and the besieged sentiments of your own people into dysfunctional political strategy. Your government depends on foreigners more than it depends on the resource, the social might and the good will of its own people. Your government has disenfranchised its own society because you have no plans to move the nation forward. They do not support Shabab or Xisb – the fellowship of the devil- but they search high and low failing to see anything tangible your government has to offer. Your government limited itself to survival in villa Somalia! So then, it begs the question, Mr. Prime Minister, why are you and the President always traveling? I’ill you why! Because that is the only thing your government knows – beg, beg and beg some more and take your people out of the equation.

 

Your government has failed to utilize the weaknesses of the opposition and speed up the recovery of a battered nation. Your government is always catching up and reacting to events driven by the opposition and I am sure you know the answer to this more than I do, Mr. Prime Minister. a government by the warlords, for the warlords; a government for the middlemen by the middlemen cannot be for its people.

 

Nur Bahal

Toronto, Canada

E-Mail:nurb@rom.on.ca

 

Related Article:

Prime Minister Sharmarke’s Credibility Gap By Liban Ahmad

The Bomber is Alive: Shamo Carnage Revisited By Abdikarim Buh

 

 

http://www.wardheernews.com/Articles_2010/Jan/Nur_Bahal/21_No_circular_logic_in_honesty.html

[Muriidi]

a good government ,like a good doctor ..makes itself unnecessary...

 

over the ages science has proven that ,as far as we are concerned, chaos & anarchy is how civilizations thrive.

 

as far as a government is concerned,a crisis is : that the government can actually do something about anything.

a government's most frequent answer is : there is nothing we can do at the moment until we have more info.

a governor has the responsibility to uphold the standards of odaynimo,and not react to munkar(things people deny)

 

perhaps mr. Bahal should contact some data processing company instead of the government.

[xiinfaniin]

Notwithstanding political spins Ina Abdi Rashid mustered in the article above, the passage below contains real truths.

 

Given the complex and extremely difficult circumstances that recent events have so graphically illustrated, achieving all this will be an extraordinary challenge. It will require the combined effort of the whole Somali people, as well as assistance from outside. Only in partnership with all Somalis and the support of the international community will success be possible. It will take time, determination and patience but it can be done. Let us all take up this challenge. Let 2010 be the start of something new.

[Muriidi]

waagii hore dawladdu waxay ahayd rag soo saftay oo diyaar u ahaa in shacabku caayo...waxaa la yiri waa la idin waardiyeen ee eedda sheegta!

waa zaciim!

waa laga ilbaxay taas..

 

dawlad ha u nisbaynin,hadaad muslim tahay , waxaas oo awood ah,iyo dhibka wadanka ka dhacoohaaya inay dawr saa u weyn ka ciyaarayso.

 

the Sol troll corner has more power than CNN !

 

paltalk causes /prevents more trouble than any government...

[Cige]

ninkaan caloosha wayn soow tuu lahaa bisha January kooxaha mucaaradka Xamar waan ka sifeynayaa , mise weli10 maamood baa bisha ka hartay

 

mid kastaa america iyo yurubbuu ka soo shaqo raadsanayaa inta busaaradi meelahas ku dishay... markuu xoogaa lacag ah helana waa iska cararaa ama waa la cayriyaa.

[BiLaaL]

Make Somalia a Priority By OMAR A.A. SHARMARKE

Published: January 19, 2010

 

Last month, a Somali man who had lived in Denmark dressed himself in women’s clothes, positioned himself at a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu and then blew himself up. He killed 22 people, including three government ministers and many young medical graduates and professors, who had hoped to dedicate their lives to the alleviation of suffering in Somalia.

This is rubbish! It is a mere allegation which is yet to be proven. The father of the alleged bomber has already declared that his son is innocent and was there to simply attend the event. It is one thing to suck up to potential donors but quite another to spread lies about a man who may well be innocent and himself a victim.

[Jacpher]

^Yours is more rubbish. The PM is stating the fact of what took place in Moqdisho that day. You're too consumed with a little sideline detail rightly or wrongly. Focus of the bigger point; the reality of Moqdisho and the suicidal maniacs blowing up people like maxaa kaa galay. Neither side proved their account of the identity of the bomber in a court of law. The father is entitled to his own version of what took place. However, that won't undermine the fact innocent people get massacred everyday by these tafkiri movement.

 

PM should bring bigger army to rid this evil out of the country if his concerns are genuine.