Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire took an unusual step of writing what can only be described as a fantasy short story on the Kenyan Daily Nation paper. It is not particularly good but shows a level of delirium not generally attributed to younger people.
Mukhtar Robow former deputy of Alshabaab terrorist network
Mr Khaire’s opens with a whopper of a lie “The recent amnesty has seen leaders of many terrorist groups defect to the government and help in nation building” is not only misleading but the only known high value personality to defect Alshabaab is Mukhtar Robow. At the time of his surrender, he has been separated from Alshabaab for over five years. Mr Robow had a falling out with Alshabab that saw his influence diminish and accepted the amnesty to ensure his safety.
Mr Robow does not have a role in Somalia’s Federal Government.
One of the many passports held by Deputy Director of Somali Intelligence Services
There is however an interesting high-ranking official in Khaire’s government, Mr Ahmed Fahad Dahir, the deputy director of Somali Intelligence Agency. Mr Dahir is known to have ties with extremist networks and is under investigation by Kenyan authorities on how he come to posses multiple Kenyan passports. It is unclear if Mr Khaire is referring to Mr Fahad Dahir as a rehabilitated terrorist. The Daily Nation was one of the papers that wrote about this mystery man.
Mr Khaire writing which lacks discernible direction and clarity has three sections titled Peace Deal, Security and Terrorism.
He goes on to describe events related to cessation of hostilities between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. Somalia’s fall out with Eritrea was based solely its wars with Djibouti and Ethiopia and becoming an pariah state of the day.
The security and terrorism sections have canned paragraphs about blowing winds, quests and (dragons?) and what about terrorism? there is a single sentence that eludes to terrorists being on the retreat. Au contraire, Alshabaab is gaining ground in Somalia especially in Mogadishu and its surrounding areas.
Source CNN
According to CNN, Washington Post and other news outlets, Alshabaab is running a more effective, albeit shadow government in of all places Mogadishu that includes a court system and levying tax on businesses.
From January 1st 2017 to date, there has been 70 attacks and 1,044 fatalities in Mogadishu by Alshabaab. Keyword is Mogadishu, the toll is much higher for the rest of Somalia.
Al-Shabab displays fighters during Tuesday’s Eid celebrations in central and southern regions. The uniform wore by some of them, including Waali of Jubba regions Abu Abdalla, is strikingly identical to the newest uniform used by the 14th Oct battalion of Govt forces. Coincidence? pic.twitter.com/rh3O7UIbAA
Counterfeit or fake medications kill more than hundred of thousands of people around the world a year according to World Health Organization, we will give you a minute to let that sink in.
This is not a problem for third world countries or unrecognized republics like Somaliland, where deaths related to counterfeit medications are not detected or recorded; this is a problem for almost any country including the United States, Germany and many other tier one economies.
An example of counterfeit Lipitor
Counterfeit drugs are simply too lucrative and are indiscriminate silent killers. In fact in certain war-torn countries like Somalia, it is estimated that counterfeit or fake drugs kill more people than Al-Shabaab.
Drug forgers spend very little to produce fake drugs, and effective forgers spend maximum effort to ensure their products are indistinguishable from the authentic drugs. In most cases, even experts and medical professional can’t tell the difference without specialized equipment and expensive lab analysis.
Even President Duterte has now made a priority for the Philippines to go after fake drugs. It’s important to remember that this is a leader that has been accused by many right organizations for blatant violation of human right and extra judiciously executing suspected drug deals. Even he thinks counterfeit medications are a problem.
Counterfeit Medications 101
Public service announcement by Bayer pharmaceutical giant.
Employees from Ivory Coast’s health ministry raid a shop selling counterfeit drugs at the Adjame market in Abidjan
Counterfeit medications generally fall in two categories, where one will have absolutely no active ingredients of the original drug and are made of all sorts of material from flour to ash and anything the counterfeiters can get their hands on. The sanitary conditions of the labs can be very sketchy at best.
The other category, may come from a source with pharmacological knowledge and generally contains some active ingredients though commonly the dosage is almost always incorrect to be effective.
Here is a program that eared on ABC 20/20 where authorities are searching and are finding a shocking amount of counterfeit drugs in Los Angeles California.
Huge Profits
Mubaarak promotional photo
Sale of pharmaceuticals in Somaliland is a huge multi million dollar business, and consumers prefer medications advertised as imported from Europe or North America.
Alla-Amin Medicine Stockroom
According to a practicing physician from Somaliland who lives in Sweden and has visually examined medications by Novo Nordisk, GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer and Pfizer he has seen in Somaliland, and though he could not confirm if the drugs were counterfeit or authentic, he simply could not believe those medications are cheaper in Hargeisa than Gothenburg Sweden.
A good indicator of counterfeit drugs is often the steep discount relative to the their authentic versions.
Inulatard Insulin from Novo Nordisk on Sale by Alla Aamin Pharmacy
There is also a partial explanation for the price difference, the Ministry of Health receives donation of authentic medications from international aid agencies to Hargeisa Group Hospital.
According to employees and others with intimate knowledge of the Ministry of Health and the medical storage facility in Hargeisa, some of these donated drugs end up being sold on the open market.
So where is Somaliland Government in all of this? Is there an Agency in charge of overseeing drug safety? And how easy is it to import medicine into Somaliland?
We are glad you asked! The good news is that Somaliland Government has had a Quality Control Commission for several years, the bad news? The Quality Control Commission does not have the expertise, the equipment, budget or enforcement operation to detect and stop counterfeit medication from entering in Somaliland markets.
There are very few instances of the QCC confiscating and publicly incinerating expired drugs in the past and the new commissioner out investigators could not locate any instance where the commission has detected counterfeit medication.
Since the inauguration of HE Muse Bihi Abdi and the appointment of the new Commissioner of the Quality Control Commission Musa Hassan Yousuf, there has been a single case where the QCC has confiscated an expired shipment of soft drinks.
Once again, pharmaceutical import or sale is an extremely lucrative business which has the potential of attracting unscrupulous folks but the lack of discernible government quality control and verification over import of medication in Somaliland lead us to believe there are both counterfeit and or sub par medications in Somaliland.
Somaliland QCC Commissioner
According to sources, Somaliland’s QCC Commissioner and the Minister of Commerce have both reportedly approached international donors for assistance on establishment of drug quality control complete with equipment, training and funding but so far there has been no commitment from international community on this request
What are the chances that counterfeit medication have already caused lives in Somaliland? Who is responsible for any loss of live and injury resulted from counterfeit medication?
Somaliland Vice President HE Abdirahman Abdallahi Ismail Saylici and a high level delegation consisting of ministers and members of the opposition parties met with Saudi investors and commissioners of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce. Saudi Arabia’s oldest chamber of commerce established in 1946.
Vice President Saylici extended an official visit to the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and the Saudi investors to come to Somaliland to evaluate the multitude of investment opportunities including agriculture, fisheries and livestock export.
Saudi Arabia is one of the largest economies in the world and opening up a fraction of it to Somaliland in direct trade for fish and seafood will have a huge impact on Somaliland’s economy.
Somaliland’s proximity to the Kingdom is another strategic advantage over other farflung trading partners such as Brasil, New Zealand and Australia which are its top trading partners for livestock and other meat products.
Additionally, Somaliland’s peace and established rule of law makes it much more attractive relative to Somalia where supply of livestock to the Kingdom are routinely disrupted by ongoing hostilities.
President of Somaliland HE Muse Bihi Abdi has set development of livestock and fisheries as a national priority and any possible investment and effort to expand exports to Saudi Arabic will require proper veterinary and introduction of commercial fishing to Somaliland to meet the demand from the Kingdom and avoid past issues where the Saudi’s unilaterally banned livestock imports from Somaliland.
The meeting with the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce follows the Vice Presidents completion of Hajj in Mecca where together with leaders of the Muslim world he met with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
The optics of Vice President shaking hands with the King was a much discussed event that many Somalilanders saw as yet another sign of being accepted into the fold of world nations however unofficial.
Somaliland has enjoyed a sporadic diplomatic glimmers of hope from the United Arab Emirates following the signing of the DP World and the Berbera Airport deals.
During his stay, Vice President Saylici also met with Somaliland’s diaspora.
In the post-cold war era and the rise of a unipolar global hierarchical system led by the United States, the world had seen the fall of many authoritarian regimes (Kaldor, 2006). This caused many civil wars to break out in those countries (Example: Somalia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, etc.) between those who were marginalized for a long period of time and armed militias of the regime (Kaldor, 2006). However, those civil wars caused havoc through large human causalities and the displacement of millions of people both internally and externally as refugees as well as destabilizing global security by becoming a refuge for human trafficking, drug smugglers and terrorist (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall, 2011).
Courtesy of Chris Hondros Liberia soldier Joseph Duo exults after firing a rocket at rebel forces in Monrovia, Liberia in 2003. The photo led to an unlikely and enduring friendship between the subject and the photographer, Getty Images photojournalist Chris Hondros. Film still from HONDROS. Photo by Chris Hondros.
Thus, these above-mentioned factors plus some economic interests and foreign policy strategies drove the western powers to intervene in these countries under the umbrella of the United Nations to make peace between the warring factions, under the goals of state building and peace building (Paris, 2004).
However since these peace building operations are complicated and various programs are needed to be implemented by various international agencies, the coordination between them was poor and confusing. For example the UN asked the international agencies working in El Salvador, Mozambique, and Cambodia to allocate more budgets for peace building projects, while the IMF conversely urged them for fiscal restraint (Paris, 2004). This problem therefore does not lie with the UN or the World Bank, but instead is a result of the funding gap between DONOR PLEDGES and the ACTUAL AMOUNT RECEIVED to implement such operations. In the case of Somalia, The London Somalia Conference and 2 (2012 and 2017 ).
However, some attempts had been made to improve the coordination between the peace building agencies. For example in Kosovo, specific projects had been assigned to each agency under the supervision of the Special Representative of the General Secretary (Paris, 2004).Though in practice the operations had overlaps and competition arose among the various agencies.
UN Peacekeepers in Bosnia
The United Nation operation in Bosnia was also criticized due to the lack of coordination between its different agencies. To avoid these mistakes, the author suggests establishing an institutional center for peace building to accumulate the expertise and the experience gained from each mission so that they are used in every mission, instead of using personnel and agencies outside of the peace building field.
Australian troops heading into East Timor serving with the International Force for East Timor (INTERFET)
This example could be seen in East Timor in 1999 when the UN’s Department of Political Affairs who were familiar and experienced in the territory were assigned to lead the peace building operations but when the violence started between the anti and the pro-independence groups, the hawks of the UN leadership decided that a military minded agency is needed and they assigned the leadership role to the Department of Peace Keeping operations (DPKO) whose expertise were in running military operations but not governmental administration (Paris, 2004).
In conclusion, one of the main mistakes of foreign interventions are their overwhelming belief in military power and disregard of the contributing role of the local communities, cultures and traditions which could at any time backfire and resort to armed resistance and jeopardize the whole concept of the peace building operation (example, that is what happened to the Americans when they invaded Somalia in 1992 and it is happening to AMISOM now).
REFERENCES Kaldor, M. 2006. New and Old Wars. Stanford University Press: California Paris, Roland, “Chapter 11: Lessons Learned and Not Learned: Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone, and Beyond,” in At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 212-234. Ramsbotham, O., Woodhouse, T. and Miall, H. 2011. Contemporary Conflict Resolution. 3rd ed.Polity: Cambridge
About the Author
Ismail Abdi Abdillahi (Bashe Abdi Gaboobe), holds Marine Engineer Certificate from Arab Maritime Transport Academy in Alexandria-Egypt, Marine Engineer Certificate from Sharjah- UAE, Post Graduate Diploma in Peace Building from Hargeysa University and Master degree in Peace Building from Coventry University, UK.
In psychology, “being in denial” is accepted as a defense mechanism in which a person, faced with a painful fact, rejects the reality of that fact. The classic symptoms of denial and delusion were on display today at a hastily convened Ministry of Investment press conference.
The Director General of the Ministry of Investment Ahmed Abokor Mohamed showing papers to the media insisted that they have ensured that Maxtor Bank is all too real and the various registration from Hong Kong and a letter from the State of Colorado proves that Maxtor Bank is in fact a real bank.
Director General Ahmed Abokor Mohamed
Additionally, representatives of Maxtor Bank in Somaliland have also spoken to the veracity of the bank and insisted that in fact it is all too real.
Both the Director General and the Bank representatives, repeated an earlier claim that the bank has been looking into Somaliland for sometime and that this is their third time to visit Somaliland.
As part of the research that Somaliland Chronicle has done, the registration of Maxtor Bank Inc is in fact real even though as Professor Abdisalam Yasin, one of the representatives of Maxtor Bank stated, a company being registered generally means nothing.
Professor Abdisalam Yasin
The biggest piece of evidence both the Ministry and Maxtor representatives furnished to the media is Maxtor Bank’s registration with the State of Colorado. This is a fact we have reported earlier and the registration is legitimate. Unfortunately, it does not mean anything.
The registration of Maxtor Bank Inc was completed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office11/05/2018 and Maxtor Bank International Bank Inc on 11/07/2018. Both entities share the same principal by the name of Xingmei Zhao and an address of 2001 16th St, Denver Co 80202.
The first problem is the actual date of incorporation of either entity which are both less than 3 months.
Another problematic piece of information is the address on the registration – 2001 16th St, Denver Co 80202 is actually a parking lot that is still under construction.
Registration address of Maxtor Bank Inc and Maxtor International Bank Inc.
Registration address of Maxtor Bank Inc and Maxtor International Bank Inc.
Somaliland Chronicle has informed the office of the Secretary of State of Colorado that Maxtor Bank Inc seems to be operating out of a parking lot.
Maxtor Bank is also registered with the UK authorities on 12 June 2018under a different name – Maxtor International Limited (Company Number 11410811). Once again, Xingmei Zhao is listed.
Xingmei Zhao? We are unsure.
One of the representatives of Maxtor Bank curiously explained his relationship with an entity he called “Maxtor IT Trading Co.” We assume this is what the Director General was referring to when he said Maxtor Bank has many subsidiaries, but what is equally perplexing is that Maxtor IT Trading Co. was also registered on July 30 2018.
On Maxtor IT Trading Co.’s Chamber Of Commerce certificate, the Economic Activity is not banking or investment but instead “ICT Firm”.
Both the representatives of Maxtor Bank and the Director General have insisted that Maxtor Bank has major investments in Malaysia, Sri Lanka and other parts of Africa without presenting any supporting evidence of such investments.
Once again, we are uncertain how Maxtor Bank Inc could have done all the purported investments in those countries since it was registered in either May or July of this year. In fact Maxtor Bank is so new their trademark was also filed on July 18 2019.
$1,783.00 Dollars in capital
On the claim that Maxtor Bank has invested in other countries, we were able to locate the registration of Maxtor IT Trading Senegal – Not Maxtor Bank. The purported capital of the Senegalese subsidiary is 1 million Senegalese francs or a whopping 1,783.10 US dollars in today’s exchange rate.
Curiously, the Senegal operation is also focused on IT and not banking.
An IT equipment reseller or a Bank?Trade Mark Application for Maxtor Bank
On Maxtor Bank’s facebook page, there are a dizzying array of documentation, very unsual for any company to be sharing what many companies regard as sensitive information. But in the case of Maxtor Bank, it seems that they are intent on convincing someone of their legitimacy.
It is also important to note that almost every piece of documentation associated with Maxtor Bank has been created in the last 2 – 3 months.
In today’s media appearance the Director General who vigorously defended the due diligence his ministry has done on Maxtor Bank stated that they have offices in many part of the world including Denver Colorado, and while both the Ministry and Maxtor representatives have shown the same documents we have shared in this article, no one bothered to explain what type of due diligence was undertaken.
Anyone can register a company and call is Janitorial International Bank, it just does not make it a bank. I can unequivocally tell you that Maxtor Bank is a fraud
We have spoken to a retired financial expert who has worked for major banks including S&P, JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch in mergers and acquisitions about Maxtor Bank. “Due diligence 101: always check their numbers and independent audit report to really know who you are dealing with in business. Anyone can register a company and call is Janitorial International Bank, it just does not make it a bank. I can unequivocally tell you that Maxtor Bank is a fraud” He said.
While Maxtor Bank’s paper trail shows a deliberate attempt to frantically create concoct semblance of a company registered in multiple jurisdictions, unfortunately, we are unable to locate any financial information. There are no market capitalization, asset under management, number of employees or any other valuable information available to evaluate Maxtor Bank, an investor claiming to have access to billions of investment dollars.
Both the Ministry and the representatives of Maxtor Bank in Somaliland insisted that “the Memorandum of Understanding does not mean they are taking something from us” however we know the modus operandi of such unscrupulous and fraudulent entities. Had the Somaliland Chronicle not broken the story the Ministry of Investment would have been asked to pay the banks fees up front or in advance.
Somaliland Chronicle stands by the findings of its research that Maxtor Bank is not a bank but a newly formed entity with no history or track record. Further the misrepresentations of the company as a “world famous Chinese bank” which the Minister & DG bought demonstrates a clear fraudulent intent.
The incident undoubtedly casts a negative shadow on Somaliland’s credibility in terms of competence and administration. Ministers and senior civil servants with such naivety and gullibility are simply an affront to the Somaliland public.
On August 14th, the Minister of Investment Mohamed Ahmed Mohamoud and a Maxtor Bank, a major Chinese bank has signed a billion dollar Memorandum of Understanding. The press event featured the bank’s leadership and the minister signing the deal where they both gave details on the nature of investment.
If all goes according to plan, this will be by all accounts the foreign largest investment which dwarfs even Berbera DP World.
There are few problems that make the deal seem bit murky atbest, starting with the nature of Chinese banking services. Banking in China is a private public partnership where the Chinese government owns 50% of all banks. This alone make the size and the caliber of the delegation seem unlikely.
The other red flag is existence of the bank itself. We simply cannot find this major bank on any registry.
Somaliland Chronicle has contacted China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and the Bank of China to try and find out more about Maxtor Bank and it turns out that they are not aware of the existence of this bank. They suggested that we double check the name of the bank but assured us that Maxtor Bank is not on their registry.
In our research, the closest thing we are able to find to Maxtor Bank is UN Maxtor Bank, a website with very little information that was last updated in 2012 and few other entities with variations of the name United Nations Maxtor registered with various authorities in the United States and United Kingdom.
It is entirely possible that Maxtor Bank goes by a different name and it may be entirely possible that it is sort of a venture capital where they will be raising the funding from private investors. In other words, having the word bank in the name does not necessarily make an entity a bank.
Maxtor Bank Chairwomen explaining the nature of the billion dollar investment.
“I don’t think any of us understood what was happening”
Ministry of Investment employee
According to Minister Mohamoud, Maxtor Bank will invest in the tourism sector where an entire city with its own wildlife center, luxury hotels, supermarkets, farms and university will be constructed.
It is unclear what data was used to to come to the conclusion to invest one billion dollars in the tourism industry while there are more urgent needs such as transportation and energy infrastructure.
“I don’t think any of us understood what was happening, cameras, microphone and hard to understand translation. My guess is we are trying show the President we are very busy attracting investment” said an Ministry of Investment present at the meeting.
While a billion dollar investment in Somaliland would go a long way, it seems that no due diligence was done by the Ministry of Investment to ascertain the credentials and veracity of various investment firms Somaliland have signed deals with so far.
Somaliland has had a history of entering into dodgy agreements with foreign and domestic entities in the past such as Fishing agreement for ASR and privatization of Berbera Oil Terminal and storage facility which President Muse Bihi Abdi has recently cancelled.
The results of our week long poll to evaluate President Muse Bihi Abdi’s performance rating through public polling are finally here! The response rate was less than we anticipated but we believe we have a representative sample to accurate gauge public sentiment of Somaliland President HE Muse Bihi Abdi and his administration.
It is also worth noting that 80% of the votes came in after the President re-nationalized the Berbera Port Oil terminals.
Number of Participants
4,193
Poll Duration
6 Days
Poll Method
Online
43.2% of respondents believe the President is doing great or good work with 29% unfavorable. Interestingly 27.8% think it is too early to evaluate President Bihi’s performance.
Clear majority of respondents have a unfavorable view of the President’s cabinet members. A point the President has acknowledged in a recent speech.
Most interesting question of the lot and its even more interesting that people are putting national unity ahead of the economy and justice.
Another area of consensus is the negative view of Somaliland’s Foreign Affairs team. 66.7% do not believe Somaliland will be recognized during President Bihi’s term as President.
The President of Somaliland HE Muse Bihi Abdi issued a Presidential decree in which he replaced and reassigned members of Somaliland representatives to the United States, United Arab Emirates and Kenya.
Ambassador Bashe Awil, the former Representative of Somaliland to the United Arab Emirates was reassigned to Kenya. This is the most significant change President Bihi has made thus far in his eight month old administration. Mr Awil was appointed by former President Ahmed Mohamoud Siilanyo and is considered one of the most powerful officials in Somaliland government;
While Mr Awil is credited with what some have hailed as a close relationship with the United Arab Emirates and and a key figure in the Berbera DP World deal, he is none the less a lightening rod for opposition where without prove have accused him of corruption and abuse of public office.
Ambassador Awil with Former President Silanyo and
In an interview with Bulsho TV, Ambassador has graciously accepted the reassigned and touched on few of his accomplishments related to the DP World and the lease of the Berbera Airport to the UAE Military.
Ambassador Bashe Awil speaking to Bulsho TV
Mr Awil is replaced by Hassan Hirad Yasin. Mr Yasin is virtually unknown but unconfirmed reports on social media state that he is in the education field currently working in the UAE as a teacher in a private school.
United States of America
President Muse Bihi Abdi also replaced the long term Representative of Somaliland to the United Stated Ambassador Rashid Garuf with Bashir Sheikh Omar Goth.
Rashid Nur Absiye in his office at the Mission.
Mr Goth who is not widely known in Somaliland political circles and hails from a well respected family and is said to be an accomplished poet and a has been an avid blogger who has written about issues in both African and Somali society extensively. According to people who know him, Mr Goth is said to be well qualified for to represent Somaliland in the United States.
In addition to the changes at the foreign missions, the President appointed Mr Hassn Ahmed Ibrahim (Embassy) as the Administrator to the Berbera port fuel and storage facilities. President Bihi has re-nationalized the Berbera port fuel and storage facility on Saturday 11th of August 2018.
In a move that is hailed as a major step in the right direction for Somaliland, today the President of Somaliland HE Muse Bihi Abdi issued an order to re-nationalize Berbera Port Oil Terminals.
In addition to re-nationalizing the Berbera Port Oil terminals, the Presidential decree also withdrew the Somaliland government from two other agreements where private enterprises have been contracted to provide security and manage the Egal International Airport parking facilities.
President Muse Bihi Abdi in his weekly cabinet meeting.
There has been a lot of complaints about the manner in which the previous Somaliland administration has transferred the management or outright sold some public infrastructure in the past including the cement factory near Berbera which was sold off to a Kuwaiti and Dahabshiil joint ventures.
Without specifics, the the Presidential decree stated that these contracts where awarded in less than legal circumstances.
Transfer of Berbera oil terminal and storage facilities to Berbera Oil Group where approved by Somaliland Parliament back in 2016 and has caused a lot of public outcry. There are unconfirmed reports that claim members of former President inner circle have ownership stakes in Berbera Oil Group.
Mohamoud Hashi, former Minister of the Presidency and Aviation.
SRM and E-pass where approved back when Mohamoud Hashi was the Minister of Aviation. Again, there are allegations that he owns a stake in both enterprises.
Ambassador Awil
It is unclear if the President’s decree to re-nationalize the Berbera oil terminal and withdraw from the airport related contracts are related to the Parliamentary Commission’s ongoing investigation into former Ministers from the previous administration.
There has been no comments from BOG, SRM and E-pass regarding the presidential decree.
