Contractor's Heaven: Foriegn firms with unknown missions decend on Mogadishu

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

 

 

Meet Salama Fikira, one of many unknown firms flocking to Mogadishu.

 

Salama Fikira

Mauritius

Level 3, Alexander house, 35 Cybercity,

Ebene, Mauritius

www.salamafikira.com

 

We provide risk management, security solutions and consultancy services to assist businesses and public sector organisations including governments and non-governmental organisations to access opportunities allowing them to operate in the most challenging parts of Africa both on land and at sea. Our client base has a strong international flavour with a mixture of private and quoted companies, public sector organisations and foreign governments.

 

 

Pacific Architects and Engineers (PAE)

525 Wilson Blvd, Suite 900

Arlington, Virginia 22209

888-526-5416

www.paegroup.com

communicate32221@paegroup.com

 

 

PAE took over DynCorp’s AFRICAP contract in September 2010. They provide logistical support to AMISOM and AECOM deals primarily with the Burundian contingent. With $7.7B in income last year, AECOM is a rising force in the "big bucket" contractor world. PAE was founded in 1955 and was one of the original 'facilities engineers’ used by the military in the Vietnam War. In Vietnam PAE grew from 274 men working at six Special Forces adviser sites in 1963 to over 24,000 employees and 120 locations at the peak of the war in 1968. The mix was 5 percent US, 15 percent TCN’s, and 80 percent local employees. In Somalia PAE works for the US State Dept under ACOTA to “provide training, logistical and construction services to the State Department under the Africa Peacekeeping Program (AFRICAP). It also supports rule of law development activities under State’s Civilian Police (CIVPOL) contract.”

 

Bancroft Global Development

2507 Massachusetts Avenue

Washington, DC 20008

(888) 801 6777

+41 43 456 9634

www.bancroftglobal.org

info@bancroftglobal.org

 

 

Bancroft is a US charity run by Princeton grad Mike Stock and his wife. Founded in 1999, Bancroft has been picking up bits and pieces of contracts via AMISOM and the US to provide field training and IED/UXO expertise. They also run a 60-room, $155 a night safe house/hotel that is usually fully booked up by the UN and journos. For many years and due to carefully following the rules of providing training in Somalia, they were the only legal game in town. Their two dozen foreign trainers can be seen along the front lines and in the range teaching Ugandans how to fight, defuse IEDs and gather intelligence. Although it might superficially like Bancroft could be an ideal front for the CIA, owner Mike Stock says his philosophy cuts directly against the grain of the Agency. Bancroft's headquarters in Mogadishu is their hotel while back in Washington, D.C. Bancroft operates out of a $5M mansion on Embassy Row under a legal entity called Donovan and Bond. For trivia fans, this was also the name of a now defunct law firm created by "Wild Bill" Donovan, the founder of what is now the CIA. When that coincidence is brought up Stock replied, "We don’t care what the Agency thinks. We don’t interface with them. I don’t like their business model," Stock told Somalia Report in an lengthy discussion. Stock maintains that they are focused on capacity building, operate transparently which is attested by their profiles recently featured in the NYTimes and AP articles in which the one of more colorful members of their group were profiled (and according to Stock, misquoted). To add to the confusion, Bancroft's website continues to be a single page with little insight on their company or operations. Stock is not entirely pleased at the focus taken by the New York Times profile which lasered in on former South African mercenary Richard Rouget rather than the other two dozen foreign trainers (mostly Europeans and South Africans) who have dramatically reduced deaths caused by IEDs and AMISOM-caused civilian casualties by indiscriminate fire. Bancroft's business model is to get in early, provide capacity and then if opportunities exist, engage their investment arm to take advantage of opportunities.

 

Polaris Business Intelligence and Investigations (PBI2)

(406) 322 3155 - USA

+44 77 1040 9916 - UK

+254 721 632 492 - KENYA

www.pbi2.com

solutions@pbi2.com

 

 

PBI2 is handling security for the World Food Programme deliveries in-country. Their “two guys and a website” approach is standard in the security industry but unhelpful. What that means is their official version of “designs and manages complex, multi-stakeholder projects for businesses, governments, international organizations and organizations in the humanitarian sector" means they actually coordinate various militias around Mog to deliver WFP shipments. They work out of a house near the airport and hire locals to provide security for convoys. They also publish rather lengthy and stentorian intelligence briefs on Somalia.

 

SKA ARABIA

P. O. Box 293 551

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

+971 4 236 7801

info@ska-arabia.com

www.ska-arabia.com

 

 

SKA runs Aden Adde airport and has contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Beginning in December of 2010 as SKA Air & Logistics (SKA) their main responsibility is to manage the terminals, provide security as well as do screening of passengers and cargo. They were said to have a ten year management contract and bumped up against some infighting in the TFG before they were cleared to do business and continue to face resistance by various carriers. Like others they also wanted to run the Port of Mogadishu but quickly found out it is a well protected cash cow that is not looking for outside management. It appeared that local warlords were getting $15K a month for protection and padding the payroll just like any other mafia controlled dock in the US it appears. Airlines like Jubba Airways, African Express Airways, Air Djibouti and cargo flights keep SKA busy enough.

 

Mechem

368B Selbourne Avenue

Lyttelton, 0157

South Africa

www.mechemdemining.com/

 

 

Mechem is a South African company well known for their demining work around the globe. They also supply modified versions of the CASSPIR armored transport and demining equipment to AMISOM and the UN who are located in their new bunker at the south end of the airport. On August 1 of this year one of their western contractors was killed in Mogadishu.

 

Gossamer Crossing, Inc.

16520 Wedge Parkway, suite 300

Reno, NV 89511

(775) 345 3505

contact@gossamercrossing.com

www.gossamercrossing.com

 

 

Gossamer Crossing is an engineering firm that is looking to Africa for expansion. They can be seen at Mogadishu airport with their natty golf shirts supervising the installation of runway lights and fence.

 

 

RA International

Local hires at work

 

PO Box 115774, Dubai, UAE

+971 4 330 7233

www.rainternationalservices.com/

somalia@raints.com

 

 

 

A UAE based company that hires primarily South Africans to construct modular buildings for AMSIOM via UNSOA. RA International began in Afghanistan in 2002 and now has around 1,000 employees from 27 different nations working in Sudan, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Chad, Uganda and Somalia. Lars and Soraya Narfeldt are the owners. They got the idea for the business while Lars worked for the UN in Afghanistan and started work in Somalia in 2010. Their projects include grading, leveling, site work and building access roads at 10 different locations around the Somali capital. They are looking to build roads, clinics, warehouses and provide AU maintenance.

 

Danish Demining Group (DDG)

Borgergade 10, DK-1300

Copenhagen K, Denmark

+45 3373 5112

www.danishdemininggroup.dk/ (website down)

anette.christoffersen@drc.dk

 

 

DDG began in 1997 as an independent organization and then merged with the Danish Refugee Council to create a broader spectrum Humanitarian Mine Action group. Run by Ms. Anette Christoffersen the DDG provides training and support to AMISOM and the UN on IED/UXO as well as IED/UXO awareness training to Somalis as well.

 

Source: Somalia Report

[burahadeer]

TfG in bed with them.Lot cash for those poor people will be milked away.Conman's paradise!

[Jacaylbaro]

Yamyam iyo Qadaadweyn baa isugu tagtay ,,,,, markaasaa rajo laga sugayaa

[N.O.R.F]

There desperately needs to be a change in the psyche of these governments. The number of consultants and NGOs on the ground doing little to nothing is staggering. I doubt there are basic checks done at inception or any monitoring during their work. Are they required? What is the benefit? How will it be measured? It’s a free for all (and a few brown envelopes help).

[Liqaye]

Not particularly intreasted in any of this the number of such organisations in mogadishu and as the TFG expands the rest of somalia is a direct result of several factors

 

 

- These organisations have the expertise, financial where withall and track record to carry out their assigned projects, there is little if no indegenious somali capacity either financially or otherwise to handle these projects, that is if the whole issues of clan calculations is left out of it (a case in point is that if something such as the SKA concession was given to a somali owned company the first consideration on the jahiil somali mind would be the clan composition of the owners and ,managers of the company, the only way that would have been avoided was to have the somali govermental capacity to manage such facilities an impossible immediate proposition post 1996.) Also do not forget the often intense pressure from western NGOs and financiers such as the great Wh"re of Babylon itself the UNDP, to enact such capacity building agreements. [i beleive this is the correct term any one is free to correct me as I am not versed in NGO speak].

 

- The unique post conflict situation of countries such as somalia, with no principled oversight (twhich means random parliamentarians who bring some heat on a certain agreement or other in some clan website or other and then promptly go quite when their envelop filled with dollars) or indeed no journalism to speak of, desicions are taken by a small inside group around certain administrative and political feifdoms with pen quickly put to paper after appropiate payments are made.

 

- The fact that these organisations are specifically set up and designed to target organisations such as the TFG, goverments in post conflict extremely volatile situations with little to no legitamacy, bankrolled by organisations these companies often deal with directly,

The only diffrence between somalia and afghanistan I would beleive is their is just (at this moment in time) much less money to be made.

 

So expect more such agreements but in the end I prefer this to the alternative any one who used the mogadishu airport pre-SKA would attest to this.

 

P.S Whilst looking thru the collection of websites I came across this nugget in the media section of

RA international services

 

2011 Jul 13

RA International commences Somaliland registration

 

RA International is pleased to announce that it has commenced the process of registering a corporate entity in the Republic of Somaliland.

 

Members of RA management recently visited Hargeisa, the administrative capital of Somaliland and met with a number of high ranking government officials and local businesses. As RA approaches the two year mark of operating in Somalia the company plans on increasing the size of its operations in Mogadishu as well as actively pursuing opportunities in the country's northern areas.

 

I hope that the following quotes by our freinds still apply and that things will not have changed to nation building e.t.c

 

"Yamyam iyo Qadaadweyn baa isugu tagtay ,,,,, markaasaa rajo laga sugayaa

"

 

"There desperately needs to be a change in the psyche of these governments. The number of consultants and NGOs on the ground doing little to nothing is staggering. I doubt there are basic checks done at inception or any monitoring during their work. Are they required? What is the benefit? How will it be measured? It’s a free for all (and a few brown envelopes help). "

[N.O.R.F]

^Note I wrote government's'

[Liqaye]

Hahaha did you include puntland under that catch all phrase?

[Jacaylbaro]

RA International is pleased to announce that it has commenced the process of registering a corporate entity in the Republic of Somaliland.

It says PROCESS and it says REPUBLIC

[Liqaye]

Yes it says so JB ,and I can see how that would excite a one word wonder such as yourself maantana waxad heeshey laba erey oo ingriisi aah. maybe you will not sleep at all tonight.

 

but also it says:

 

As RA approaches the two year mark of operating in Somalia the company plans on increasing the size of its operations in Mogadishu as well as actively pursuing opportunities in the country's northern areas.

 

This conundrum is deep and profound

[RaMpAgE]

No Surprise here, Somalia is a colony of AU who are in turn the puppets of US

[SayidSomal]

^^labadaan kaa koreeyana erayeey kaga dhegantahay - as usual they are playing their favourite past time game: "Semantics" - whilst their house gets robbed.

[N.O.R.F]

Liqaye;745685 wrote:

Hahaha did you include puntland under that catch all phrase?

It includes every 3rd world country at the clutches of the UN/IMF/World Bank/NGOs.

[Faarax-Brawn]

I know a couple of guys who work for a couple of these companies. Some are quite legit,ya ppl

[Baashi]

I hardly contain myself! Reminds me famous poem: Waa duni laka iibsadoo nala ogeysiine.

 

That being said, war Libaax are you up for risk venture

[Som@li]

The concept that Somalis don't have the capacity to do any of those tasks is false, out sourcing all government services to foreign , unknown, unchecked, is not the answer, how ever hard and tiring, it is , it is better to train , and let locals do the job.

 

Axyaa wadani.

 

Somalia is not the first country coming out of civil war,.