UN experts push for independent review of Somali food programme

17 March 2010 UN News Service

The Security Council should urge Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to initiate an independent investigation into the food distribution programme in Somalia, a United Nations group of experts recommends in a new report which claims that humanitarian officials divert food aid for military use.
“A handful of Somali contractors for aid agencies have formed a cartel and become important powerbrokers – some of whom channel their profits, or the aid itself, directly to armed opposition groups,” the Security Council’s Monitoring Group on Somalia alleged in its latest report on international compliance with UN sanctions against Somalia and Eritrea.
The report singled out the Adaani family, one of the three largest contractors for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Somalia, which has “long been a financier of armed groups,” and which has ties with Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the militia coalition Hizbul Islam.
The Monitoring Group also recommended that WFP revise its internal procedures to diversify how it issues contracts and work closely with other UN agencies and offices to share information about the Somali business community.
Looking to Mogadishu, the report criticized the war economy for corrupting and enfeebling State institutions under the leadership of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
The apparent corruption has spread to the Somali security services which sell their military supplies in open markets.
“The limited ability of the Transitional Federal Government to pay its officials and security forces is handicapped by entrenched corruption at all levels: commanders and troops alike sell their arms and ammunition – sometimes even to their enemies,” the report said.
The TFG’s survival is attributed not to its military but to support from the UN-backed African Union peace support operation known by its acronym AMISOM and clan militias that have turned against the rebel Al Shabaab militias.
In a related development, the TFG signed an agreement with a former rival group known as Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama’a at the headquarters of the African Union (AU). Militias in Somalia are known to change allegiances frequently.
On the topic of piracy, which the Monitoring Group called “the most obvious symptom of the war economy,” it noted that attacks on shipping off Somalia increased in 2009, despite the presence of international naval forces offshore.
The report also cautioned against the increasing involvement of Somalia’s immediate neighbours, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya, which “are militarily involved in the conflict or plan to become involved in the coming months.”
The Monitoring Group singled out Eritrea to cease any subsidies to members of the armed opposition groups currently based in Asmara and cancel Eritrean passports issued to members of the group.