Somalia: The Wealthy Group Thrives On Starving Population - Scandal!

Virginia (Keydmedia) - Eight Somali businessmen said they bought food from the Contractor - On August 16, 2011, Katherine Houreld of AP has uncovered how relief aid is stolen in big scale in Mogadishu, and perhaps being plundered as early as 1992.

Article Keydmedia Online
22 August 2011

The high lightened culprit is Engineer Abdulqadir Mohamed (Enow) and his affluent spouse, who runs Saacid, a powerful local food agency. However, we believe that Enow is not alone, as he is always pinned under the armpits of the top government officials.

Where faith of any religion and moral standing are in short supply, plundering relief aid is the easiest way of getting richer and richer after every single unloaded shipment. Like al-Shabab, this is a Somali curse.

“The WFP acknowledges that it had been investigating food theft/diversion for the first time in the past two months,” reported Katherine Houreld. Why it took 20 years to uncover food diversions…? 

No sane person can believe such version. In fact, the aid theft was happening in the past 20 years, and we do strongly believe that WFP regional and filed authorities are not immune of aid plunder in the past quarter of a century timeline.

In the other hand, the majority of Somalis do believe that whatever total relief food shipments donated to the famishing recipients in the past twenty years, only half of it or less made to the plates of the hungry masses. Enow and his spouse could be the tip of the greatest WFP aid theft in the century, but we need to see the big guys lurking behind the UN mantle on the hot seat, as well.

The genuine Somali populations are earnestly asking the Secretary General of the UN to make good the missed portion of food aid and be forwarded within the famine season. There’s another question. How can we trust WFP service if the aid thieves are not apprehended and brought to justice?

Mr. Abdulqadir Mohamed Nur-Enow is the wealthiest WFP contractor ever in East Africa, let alone Somalia. He is under WFP contract since 1992 and has been reported to have extensive warehouses around Mogadishu where his sales aid foods to business retailers.

One of his extensive warehouses is located behind Hotel Nasahablood, by the roundabout of Kilometer Four in Mogadishu. All Foods in his stores are relief aid that bears the stamps of USAID, the Kuwait Government, the Japanese government, the WFP, and perhaps so, will be other aid food on the way to the southern and central regions of Somalia.

The AP found 8 major sites where thousands of aid foods bags are being sold in the open market; as well as many smaller stores where aid foods were being sold in North Mogadishu.

Certain aid foods have a good demand in the market, such as: Kuwait dates, biscuits, corn, plump’s nut and peanut butter designed for starving children. Officials in Mogadishu with extensive knowledge of food trade said a massive amount of aid food is being stolen for long-perhaps to half of recent aid deliveries, admitted the AP reporter.

“While helping starving people, you are also feeding of groups that make a business out of the disaster,” remarked Joakin Gundel who heads Katun, a consultant company based in Nairobi often asked to evaluate International aid efforts in Somalia.

Another official with extensive knowledge of the aid food trade said at some Saacid kitchen sites, “It appeared less than half of the food delivered for feeding.”

A Badbaado camp in Mogadishu run by the TFG tells an appealing account of how the starving people are deprived of food aid delivered to them. “As usual food is delivered to the camp and journalists take pictures and leave,” admit the plundered recipients.

The government servicing staff force the people to give back the food, and the starving people complain about it, and say: “They tell us they will keep it for us and force us to give them our food,” said a refugee Halima Sheikh Abdi.

She continued and added, “We cannot refuse to cooperate because if we do, they will force us out of the camp, and then you don’t know what to do and eat. It happened to many people already.” The AP reporter said, “WFP officials have long expected some of the aid food pouring into Somalia to disappear.

But the sheer scale of the theft calls into question the aid group’s ability to reach the starving masses. Paradoxically, it took WFP 20 odd years to confirm for the first time the grand aid theft in the century…!

Here is another source of information about aid diversion. 3 businessmen described buying food directly from Mogadishu Port and paid into Enow Dahabshil account, a money transfer system in Somalia.

Many quarters, local and international believe that diverted food fuels Somalia’s 20-years of civil wars. The successive TFG officials covered up aid scam. It is big business with mutual interest for a privileged club.

The food scam starts from Mogadishu Port management, and includes: The shipment service unit in the port, the TFG aid supervisor and ultimately the contractor. On behalf of the top TFG officials, the contractor takes care of their interest and enjoys the impunity of the government scrutiny. Nominating a civil servant official to supervision position at Mogadishu Port is the most rewarding political position ever offered to one.

A spokesman for the TFG Mr. Abdurahman Omar Osman said, “The government does not believe food aid is being stolen on a larger scale, but if such report comes to light the government will do everything in its power to bring action in a military court.”

Who can believe such hollow words? In fact, the government is a full partner of food theft. It never brought aid thieves to the court. The Government did no establish courts of justice in the first place. What the AP reporter had learned in 24 hours could not have remained in the darkness off the government radar for twenty long years.

If half of the aid food is stolen in the past 20 years, how many people died of hunger since then…? How much money was worthy the disappeared food…? As of late as of August 16, 2011, 29,000 children died of starvation.

Who embezzled their food and put them into an agonizing death…? Unlike Hitler, these opportunists did not gas their victims, but like Hitler, they starved to death, and they are equally accountable of the lives of those who died of hunger.

The WFP contractors are also responsible of the death of the 14 WFP employees killed since 2008. The contractors felt uncomfortable of vigilant WFP employees and contracted for their death, believe ¾ of Mogadishu residents.

Since Somalia falls under the mandate of the UN, the food contractors should be brought to justice and all their ill-gotten assets are frozen and refunded to the starving people.     

Virginia - Keydmedia.net