By Hassan Keynan
Here he goes again. Somalia’s finance guru doing what he does best: mixing imagination, fiction, and deception to finance a gigantic fraud. For four years he toured the world, paid homage to the headquarters of the World Bank, IMF, and associated lender clubs.
For four years, he attended myriad multilateral and bilateral meetings and held endless press conferences and media briefings. For four years the good doctor was engaged in a charm mission that painted the image of a country under a new management, led by a dynamic enlightened leadership, and in the trusted hands of a competent, effective, and clean government.
He tweeted, wrote and talked about a country with great economic prospects firmly on the path to a smooth and full recovery and uncontaminated by corruption.
Abdirahman Baileh
Obviously, this was an exaggerated claim aimed at impressing and courting the international community in the hope that it would keep propping up the colossal fiction he and Villa Somalia have been peddling.
He cared less and knew little about the country and its traumatized people. Informed foreign observers and patriotic Somalis were fully aware that the country was in a fragile state and frequently prone to multiple and devastating shocks, risks, and threats. Villa Somalia and the government it led have been blighted by endemic corruption coupled with a corrosive culture of rent seeking and impunity.
Most importantly, the federal government was confined to a few enclaves in Mogadishu which were protected by African troops contributed by poor countries led by despots and whose salaries were paid by European tax payers. Villa Somalia governs only Mogadishu and depends on revenues extracted from the inhabitants of the Capital only.
In fact, Farmaajo’s money man transformed the fleecing of Mogadishu into a predatory relationship built on an extreme version of taxation not only without representation but also without protection, social services, and accountability. To this can be added the taxes levied by Al-Shabaab, which makes Mogadishu a city saddled with the heavy and horrendous burden of double taxation.
Here he goes again. Somalia’s finance guru doing what he does best: mixing imagination, fiction, and deception to finance a gigantic fraud. For four years he toured the world, paid homage to the headquarters of the World Bank, IMF, and associated lender clubs.
For four years, he attended myriad multilateral and bilateral meetings and held endless press conferences and media briefings. For four years the good doctor was engaged in a charm mission that painted the image of a country under a new management, led by a dynamic enlightened leadership, and in the trusted hands of a competent, effective, and clean government.
He tweeted, wrote and talked about a country with great economic prospects firmly on the path to a smooth and full recovery and uncontaminated by corruption.
Obviously, this was an exaggerated claim aimed at impressing and courting the international community in the hope that it would keep propping up the colossal fiction he and Villa Somalia have been peddling.
He cared less and knew little about the country and its traumatized people. Informed foreign observers and patriotic Somalis were fully aware that the country was in a fragile state and frequently prone to multiple and devastating shocks, risks, and threats. Villa Somalia and the government it led have been blighted by endemic corruption coupled with a corrosive culture of rent seeking and impunity.
Most importantly, the federal government was confined to a few enclaves in Mogadishu which were protected by African troops contributed by poor countries led by despots and whose salaries were paid by European tax payers. Villa Somalia governs only Mogadishu and depends on revenues extracted from the inhabitants of the Capital only.
In fact, Farmaajo’s money man transformed the fleecing of Mogadishu into a predatory relationship built on an extreme version of taxation not only without representation but also without protection, social services, and accountability. To this can be added the taxes levied by Al-Shabaab, which makes Mogadishu a city saddled with the heavy and horrendous burden of double taxation.
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