Somaliland&Bollore to sign agreement on 2.5 billion port and pipeline investment

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

Hargeisa has instructed a British lawyer to negotiate with the French group Bolloré to hammer out the details of the agreement to manage Berbera port.

 

Meetings began about two weeks ago between representatives of Bolloré Africa Logistics and the British law practice McCue & Partners to work on an agreement for the French group to run Berbera port. In fact, several months ago the Somaliland government instructed the firm’s main partner, Jason Daniel McCue, 44, to look for funding to develop the Berbera corridor towards Ethiopia. This is a vast project including an oil pipeline, estimated to cost a total of around $2.5 billion. This mandate was attributed to the Berbera Development Company (BDC) founded by McCue in London in April 2013 to make the Somaliland port into a logistics hub for the whole region.

 

McCue and BDC have consequently also become Bolloré’s primary contact points for Somaliland. BDC has three directors in addition to McCue, who is interested in security via his MODA Alliance Group. They are the Britons John Richard Moore, 45, who heads John Moore & Co and Ibrahim Ali Yusuf, 41, plus the Canadian Ahmed Mohamed Abokor, 48. The latter lives in Djibouti, where he is in partnership with the businessman Mohamed Said Guedi in the company Afro Shnagai-Djibouti. He is also one of the directors of Pontus Marine Ltd (ION 1359) – an industrial fishing company in Somaliland founded last year in London – alongside the British lawyer from Somaliland, Mohammed Yusef who is moreover the founder of Invicta Capital. Pontus Marine has one heavyweight as a non-executive director: the Conservative MP Henry Bellingham, a former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in charge of African affairs.

 

Indian Ocean Newsletter

[CidanSultan]

Mashallah wonderful news.... Easy access to Ethiopian market. What we need is a free trade agreement with these Ethiopians because the benefits are going in one direction at the moment.

 

Xabashis should give somaliland total and free trade access into the Ethiopian market.

 

Millionaires over night...

 

Mark my words

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

Somaliland should indeed be eyeing the big and growing market of Ethiopia, thats why bollore is also investing that type of amount of money they know that, Ethiopias market is growing in the next coming years. Free trade zone is inevitable in the near future , Somaliland should eye and invest in the sidamo coffee plantations in southern Ethiopia, to the same way Xoogsade did in the70s and 80s and early 1990s. Somaliland can be the maritime hub of the entire region., i am just a little worried that they dont lease the port for to long max 20 years not more.

[CidanSultan]

For 2.5 billion in investment Saxib that type of investment is long term the business has to make back its money then add profit to it. Ethier through customs exchange percentage or physical management of the port or both.

 

Forget coffee and stuff like that that business is well exploited and the market is used it and exploited.

 

What we need is to legalise all so called contraband. Turning wajale inside Ethiopia e.i using somaliland entrepreneurship importing goods from the world and selling it to Ethiopians with added value.