Somalia Tops Most Corrupt Countries List For Fifth Year

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

Somalia Tops Most Corrupt Countries List For Fifth Year

 

see photosAP Photo/David Guttenfelder

Click for full photo gallery: Most Corrupt Countries

 

Politicians in Somalia have come up with a new way to profit from that country’s misery: They set up rival refugee camps to divert food donations they can then steal and sell on the black market. This is just one of the many practices that landed Somalia atop Transparency International’s list of Most Corrupt Countries for the fifth straight year.

 

Compiled through a variety of independent surveys, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index attempts to measure the level of bribery, diverted aid and stolen political power that enrich a country’s leaders at the expense of its citizens and overall economy. This year’s list contains many familiar names, including Venezuela and Haiti, as well as newcomer North Korea, which tied with Somalia with a score of 1 out of 10 and operates like a big criminal enterprise with nukes.

 

For thoroughgoing, consistent and deadly corruption, Somalia is hard to beat. The worst crimes are committed by the jihadist Al-Shabaab movement, which controls large swaths of the countryside and finances its operations partly through ransom money it demands as tribute from pirate gangs. But Somalia’s hopeful-sounding Transitional National Government isn’t much better: According to a recent report by U.N. monitor Matt Bryden for the Enough Project, an anticorruption group, the government led by President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is competent mainly at stealing foreign aid.

 

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“While donor governments pay the TFG’s bills and African Union forces do most of the fighting on its behalf, corrupt government officials have made off with as much loot as they possibly can,” Bryden wrote. Even the government’s own accountants reported $72 million in aid stolen between 2009 and 2010, with another quarter-billion unaccounted for. “The scale of the TFG’s financial hemorrhaging is so immense that the term ‘corruption’ seems barely adequate.”

 

Tied with Somalia is newcomer North Korea, which entered the list for the first time. More information is becoming available from executives doing business in the secretive kingdom as well as tens of thousands of escapees who have made their way to Korea and China. Author Melanie Kirkpatrick of the Hudson Institute is writing a book about life in North Korea under the hereditary dictatorship of Kim Jong-il.

 

Kirkpatrick described North Korea as “more like Imperial Japan than anything else,” with a godlike leader and rigid caste system that allows members of the military and preferred castes to prey on everybody else. To curry favor with his highest-caste subjects, she said, Kim Jong-Il hands out expensive foreign-made watches, cars and silk underwear on his birthday, Feb. 16. They’re likely purchased with the hard currency Jong-Il earns from international sales of counterfeit currency, illegal drugs, and weapons.

 

“It’s no exaggeration to say it’s the most corrupt place on earth,” said Kirkpatrick, who interviewed dozens of recent escapees for two years to compile her book. “The basic means of everyday survival are based very heavily on who you know and who you can bribe.”

 

Videos spirited out of the country show military trucks being used for an illegal bus service – lower-caste citizens must bribe military officials to leave their designated villages and labor groups – and bags of United Nations-donated rice being sold in markets.

 

North Korea considers itself a communist country but after the government-induced famines of the 1980s Kim Jong-il’s government abandoned any pretense of serving the poor, Kirkpatrick said. Millions of peasants died of starvation and the police, military and even embassy officials switched to corruption and bribery to finance their operations. In one case reported by the New York Times, two North Korean diplomats were stopped in the Moscow airport and found to have 77 pounds of cocaine in their diplomatic pouches. In 2002, officials in Taiwan intercepted 174 pounds of heroin that had been offloaded from a North Korean naval vessel.

 

Myanmar, or Burma as it is known to its political opposition and the U.S. government, is another Asian nation that earned a place on the list because of the rampant corruption of its military-dominated government.

 

The Obama administration has warmed slightly to Burma recently after the government allowed Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to visit Nobel Prize winner and longtime political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi. But elections held in 2010 were widely criticized and boycotted by the main opposition party, National League for Democracy. The president, Thein Sein, is a former military commander and present and former officers still extract large amounts of graft from bribery and illicit sales of timber and other resources. The Obama administration has kept in place sanctions for the regime’s political repression and failure to control illegal drug production.

[Somalia]

Man, Xaaji, our country does need some fixing up man.

[Yunis]

Xaaji Xunjuf;762626 wrote:

Somalia Tops Most Corrupt Countries List For Fifth Year

 

 

 

Politicians in Somalia have come up with a new way to profit from that country’s misery: They set up rival refugee camps to divert food donations they can then steal and sell on the black market. This is just one of the many practices that landed Somalia atop Transparency International’s list of Most Corrupt Countries for the fifth straight year.

.

I wouldn't believe this media assertion a week ago, but after that loud and obnoxious personality called Prof. IBBI set the seat over to a hotel lobby in Nairobi, I am not shocked this sort of thing is happening. Where he claimed he help setup camp near xamar, and was bragging about donors flocking to assist him and the needy he is sheltering.

 

we have culture that can only be described as *criminal* immunity, where a warlord, wadaadlord, others who kill and aid in killing can and want to participate in a position of leadership and govern a society - yet we expect such society to produce decent leaders with integrity...

[Som@li]

very disappointed again,

[Thankful]

I wondering where the Hargeysa admin ranks? Opps, they are considered part of Somalia by the UN!

[Abdul]

$72 million stolen and a quater-billion unaccounted for?.The UN should go in and arrest these looters.This is unbelievable.

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Matt Bryden is a corrupt himself, one among scores who profited and still profit from the two decades of misfortune that is Soomaaliya. He also famously advocates the dismemberment of Soomaaliya and is a paid cahoot of a certain goosashodoon folks. Just google his name.

 

Yes, Soomaalida hoggaanka Soomaaliyeed sheegto waa corrupt aad u ba'an. There is no doubt about that. But foreign men like Mr. Bryden financially benefit from this same corruption as well in the name of think-tanks, international reports, monitoring and whatnot.

[Somalia]

^^ Thanks for pointing this out!

Matthew Bryden is an analyst who has been involved with several organizations working in and for Africa, and he has specialized in Somali affairs. He was a coordinator of the UN Security Council's Monitoring Group which monitors the flow of arms in and out of Somalia.

His nomination to the post caused controversy due to his support for independent statehood for Somaliland. Bryden has edited a book of essays on Somaliland. He is a Canadian national but is known to carry a Somaliland passport.

A Somalia Report article describes another instance of bias. On December 10, 2010, the Somaliland government announced that "during an emergency landing they had seized a mysterious plane containing weapons and mercenaries bound for Puntland", prompting Bryden and members of the UN Monitoring Group to investigate.

Witnesses state that Bryden was threatening two captives for not cooperating, but it was discovered that they were telling the truth that they were journalists heading to Puntland to report on anti-piracy training.

Sources

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Bryden#References

 

http://www.somaliareport.com/index.php/subcategory/2/Home_LAND/Buzz/022011///1

[sharma-arke451]

faxshir iga dheh.

One man's meat is another man's poison.

[Carafaat]

Matt Bryden was till recently an analyst with the International Crisis Group, who has nothing to do with Aid money. So, dont accuse people just because you disagree with them.

 

Other then that I know many westerners and Somali's who live in Nairobi and enriched themselves with the Aid funds and belief me those people have a reason to hide and you wont see them in the media.

[kingofkings]

don't we always make the top of the list every year and if so, how is it a news?

[sharma-arke451]

@carafat, heedhe Sideed wax uwadaa?

If the accusation is true, why defend The man?

[Thankful]

Carafaat;762697 wrote:

Matt Bryden was till recently an analyst with the International Crisis Group, who has nothing to do with Aid money. So, dont accuse people just because you disagree with them.

 

Other then that I know many westerners and Somali's who live in Nairobi and enriched themselves with the Aid funds and belief me those people have a reason to hide and you wont see them in the media.

From what I hear Mr. Bryden's wife is from NW Somalia and thus in my opinion this poses a significant conflict of interest and explains why he he is gentle on the Hargeysa admin, particularly when it comes to their suspect involvement with Al Shabaab and secessionism.

 

I have supported some of his findings in the past, however, it is clear he only looks for the bad in certain area's of Somalia and gives others a pass.

[Carafaat]

As long as we blame others for our misfortunes we wont solve anything. UN officials are not the source of corruprion, but our greed and culture of corruption that has let them. For example wasnt it the first PM of the TFG, who was bragging about having 50 mln dollars while being 50 years old?

 

Lets stop blame others and tell eachother the truth.