The Administration of the former Prime Minister, Mr. Hassan Ali Khaire, has never wasted an opportunity to purport its anti-corruption stunt in order to convince the international community that his Administration is well placed for debt relief under the IMF Staff Monitored Program (SMP) and the World Bank and IMF’s program for the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). But the office has been the source of many corruption scandals within the Federal Government….
PM Kheire (left) and Yahya These corruption scandals mostly took place in the Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Prime Minister. They include bogus import tax exemptions given to cronies of the Prime Minister, Hassan Ali Khaire and misappropriation of government revenue by both the Finance Minister and Prime Minister Khaire. But the focus of this article is one of Hassan Ali Khaire’s cronies and fixer, Mr. Yahye Ali Ibrahim, also known Yahye Hareri, as we will shed light on his role as the mastermind of the fraudulent activities inside Farmajo’s administration.
In 2015, Yahye become the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Interior and Federal Affairs, working under the leadership of then Minister Mr. Abdirahman Odowaa, an Islamist and an ally of the former President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. In few years, Yahye has earned an unmatched reputation as the most notorious official in the Administration, enriching himself with the spoils of Somalia’s meager public resources. Now, we confirmed that he receives salaries and allowances from multiple projects which is not only illegal under the guidelines of the Civil Servant Commission but also violates the agreement with the IMF and World Bank on SMP and debt relief under HIPC.
Interior Ministry
Looking through the staff payroll, Yahye still remains in the system as a civil servant with grade A salary of $1,200. His title unchanged. The salary is wired to a private account in Dahabshil on monthly bases.
Office of the Prime Minister (OPM)
The Office manages several projects in which the Prevention/Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) is just one of them. The project was initially under the Ministry of Information, but with his political clout through the PM, Yahye brought the project under the OPM portfolio. And there he obtains a whopping monthly allowance of $8,000 as coordinator.
Despite that, Yahye cashes in $7,500 per month from the Reconciliation and Federalism (REFS), an inter-agency project between the UNDP, Ministry of Interior and the OPM. Yahye kicked out Mr. Jaffar Jama who was the focal point person of REFS to the Office in part because he had symbiotic relations with UNDP’s former senior staff. Sources from UNDP confirm that Jama and two other staffers salaries were repackaged to fit Yahye’s higher consultancy needs as a political operative.
As though the triple dipping was not sufficient, there is also another $5,500 stipend that goes to Yahye from the OPM’s operational budget, where Yahye was listed as senior advisor to the Prime Minister. The author verified this from an official source at the Office who spoke with a condition of anonymity.
Lump Sum
With that, the author estimates the illegal cash stream to be over 22 grands per month. The loopholes in the system provide potential swindlers a wide latitude to exploit both government coffers and projects managed by partners. However, what we couldn’t verify was the amount paid to Yahye under NISA payroll, Somalia’s spy agency, since he’s actively involved in its operations as a colonel.
Reconciliation in Sham Process
Known for his glib and shrewd calculations, Mr. Yahye was able to lead the process of “Galmudug reconstitution” with full support from the deposed PM Hassan Khaire, who provided him the mandate to engineer the process in order to produce a favorable Administration. Within days, Yahye secured appointment of counterpart officials from the Ministry of Interior and Federal Affairs, including Ms. Sadia Elmi to handle the logistics and financial management, an ally he previously installed in both the Ministry of Interior and the Office of the Prime Minister.
Some of the business owners contacted in Dhusamareb confirmed that Yahye was responsible for guaranteeing payment of services incurred by the Ministry, including rental cars, provision of accommodations and cost of refreshments. These business owners admitted lack of understanding of the public institutions as well as the background of those they engaged, for instance, Ms. Sadia and Mr. Yahye.
The doctored Galmudug process was used to milk the international partners as well, including NIS Foundation, USAID and FCA, among others, to shoulder the expenses incurred to reset “Galmudug State.” An estimated $1.5 million were allegedly secured from partners who paid highly inflated services through ghost firms in Dhusamareb. Meanwhile, budget allocations from the Ministry of Finance were used as well to move th
