NO! NOT ANOTHER UNDP SCANDAL IN THE HORN OF AFRICA!

By Jerry Okungu
Hargeisa, Somaliland
June 16, 2008

A few weeks before Kenya’s elections, in mid October 2007 to be precise, this author caught a UNDP vehicle based in Nairobi distributing hate leaflets targeting Raila Odinga, the then main challenger to Mwai Kibaki in Dagoretti Corner of Nairobi.
This muddy Saturday afternoon, a Volvo with UN registration looked stuck in the mud.

As he drove by after getting a tip from some young men, he stopped to find out what the UN vehicle was doing in that God-forsaken place so late in the evening on a Saturday afternoon bearing in mind that most UN offices close down on Friday midday.
When he moved closer, he found two young men seated comfortably distributing Raila Odinga’s alleged version of his MoU with the Muslim community. That document was as damaging as it possibly could. It talked of Raila in future introducing Sharia law in Kenya and turning Kenya into an Islamic state.

It talked of every major wish list a Muslim would have of a perfect Islamic state. It left it in no one’s mind that Christians and other religious groups would be in deep trouble should Raila Odinga’s ODM win the elections. For all intents and purposes, this document was meant to instill fear in Americans, the British and any other power that would abhor another Islamic state in the Horn of Africa.

After getting a copy of this seditious document, this author took the picture of the vehicle and sent it to all the newsrooms in Nairobi with a caption “Is the UN involved in Kenya’s local political campaign?”

Of all the newsrooms that received the damaging picture, only the Nairobi Star used the story and the picture and followed it up with the UN in Gigiri. The vehicle was traced to the UNDP in Gigiri and after that there was a general stone-walling on how it got involved in the murky waters of Kenyan elections.

Soon after the elections, news leaked that top ranking officials of UNDP in Nairobi together with the then World Bank Director, Collin Bruce had secretly endorsed the flawed elections that caused over two thousand lives and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons.

Since then, Collin Bruce has been recalled to Washington while the fate of top UNDP officials in Nairobi still remains a mystery after the Chief UN official in Nairobi called a press conference to dissociate herself from the purported endorsement of Kenya’s election results.

As the war raged in the streets of Kenya with Kofi Annan in town to resolve the dispute, a UN official in the Communications department met me by accident at the Serena Hotel. On being introduced to him by his brother, he just fell short of punching me on the face when he was told I was the Jerry Okungu who had filed the UNDP- story and picture of the UN vehicle!

This week, as I was busy going through the newspapers in Somaliland, I came across this article in the Somaliland Times which incidentally was filed from Nairobi in mid May 2008 accusing UNDP of involvement with the Islamic Courts in Somalia! Is this a coincidence or a well orchestrated UNDP network in Africa to meddle in the politics of the regions? Can some UN official clear the air?
Read on a make your own conclusions.

“Nairobi, May 17, 2008 –
A former employee of the UNDP has reportedly accused the agency of involvement with and support to a remittance company linked to the ousted Union of Islamic Courts. This support, according to Ismail Ahmed, included intervening to help the company, Dalsan win U.S. licenses and unfreezing funds blocked in Switzerland on suspicion of money laundering and terrorist financing.

Dalsan was the remittance company which was being headed by Abdilkadir Hashi Ayro, younger brother to Aden Hashi Ayro, leader of the Al-Shabbab who was killed during a US air raid early this month. Two years ago, the remittance company is said to have collapsed and suffered a loss of about $30,000,000.

Ahmed, who worked for UNDP from 2005 and 2007, provided a detailed dossier to Reuters also accused the UN agency of terminating his contract and taking retaliatory measures against him.

A Washington-based Government Accountability Project supported Ahmed's account. Shelley Walden, international programme associate at the non-profit group, told Reuters that the UNDP had turned a blind eye to wrongdoing and damaged its credibility.

UNDP spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: "Clearly UNDP takes all these allegations extremely seriously and we are in fact investigating them thoroughly."
He said the agency's Office of Audit and Investigations had already produced a report on the alleged retaliation for Ahmed's whistle blowing. Its new ethics adviser, who began work on December 1, would review the report and decide what action to take.

Dujarric however refrained from commenting on specific allegations.
"We're going at this with a very open mind. What we will find, we will find...I can't prejudge what the investigation team will find," he told Reuters.
Dalsan, according to some expert accounts was either the largest or the second-largest Somali money-wiring company after its competition Al-Barakaat's assets were frozen by US Executive Order immediately after 9/11.

It had offices in US, Great Britain, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates where its headquarters was based before Abdilkadir moved it to Mogadishu.
"A report by the European Commission's Nairobi-based Somali Unit estimates that at its height in the aftermath of the U.S. actions against Al-Barakaat, Dalsan, which was, rather interestingly, formed in August 2001, was moving at least $100 million a year," according to J. Peter Pham who is the Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

Pham adds: "In early May 2006, Dalsan folded its operations without warning, taking with it not only the $10 million to $30 million in capital invested by individual shareholders, but an estimated $9 million to $12 million in unconsummated money transfers from ordinary customers.

Company officials – at least those who can be tracked down – have thus far refused to explain the causes of the shutdown, much less elaborate on the fate of the funds entrusted to them."

"A little more detachment, however, raises even greater concerns. Is it yet another coincidence that Dalsan was closely linked with the likes of the Sheikh Osman and Hashi 'Ayro brothers, all of whom were leading figures in the Al-Itihaad precursor of the Islamic Courts militia?

And is it still another mere coincidence that the extremist forces within the ICU received a massive infusion of arms and men in the same month that Dalsan collapsed – reinforcements that tipped the scales in the Islamists' battle with U.S.-backed factions for control of Mogadishu?" Pham asks in his report written in 2006.”
Source: The Reporter, Somaliland Times and Reuters

Nairobi, May 17, 2008 – A former employee of the UNDP has reportedly accused the agency of involvement with and support to a remittance company linked to the ousted Union of Islamic Courts.

A former employee of the UNDP has reportedly accused the agency of involvement with and support to a remittance company linked to the ousted Union of Islamic Courts.
This support, according to Ismail Ahmed, included intervening to help the company Dalsan win U.S. licenses and unfreezing funds blocked in Switzerland on suspicion of money laundering and terrorist financing.

Dalsan was the remittance company which was being headed by Abdilkadir Hashi Ayro, younger brother to Aden Hashi Ayro, leader of the Al-Shabbab who was killed during a US air raid early this month.

Two years ago, the remittance company is said to have collapsed and suffered a loss of about $30,000,000.
Ahmed, who worked for UNDP from 2005 and 2007, provided a detailed dossier to Reuters also accused the UN agency of terminating his contract and taking retaliatory measures against him.

A Washington-based Government Accountability Project supported Ahmed's account. Shelley Walden, international programme associate at the non-profit group, told Reuters that the UNDP had turned a blind eye to wrongdoing and damaged its
credibility.

UNDP spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: "Clearly UNDP takes all these allegations extremely seriously and we are in fact investigating them thoroughly."
He said the agency's Office of Audit and Investigations had already produced a report on the alleged retaliation for Ahmed's whistle blowing. Its new ethics adviser, who began work on December 1, would review the report and decide what action to take.

Dujarric however refrained from commenting on specific allegations.
"We're going at this with a very open mind. What we will find, we will find...I can't prejudge what the investigation team will find," he told Reuters.

Dalsan, according to some expert accounts was either the largest or the second-largest Somali money-wiring company after its competition Al-Barakaat's assets were frozen by US Executive Order immediately after 9/11.

It had offices in US, Great Britain, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates where its headquarters was based before Abdilkadir
moved it to Mogadishu.
"A report by the European Commission's Nairobi-based Somali Unit estimates that at its height in the aftermath of the U.S. actions against Al-Barakaat, Dalsan, which was, rather interestingly, formed in August 2001, was moving at least $100 million a year," according to J. Peter Pham is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

Pham adds: "In early May 2006, Dalsan folded its operations without warning, taking with it not only the $10 million to $30 million in capital invested by individual shareholders, but an estimated $9 million to $12 million in unconsummated money transfers from ordinary customers.

Company officials – at least those who can be tracked down – have thus far refused to explain the causes of the shutdown, much less elaborate on the fate of the funds entrusted to them."

"A little more detachment, however, raises even greater concerns. Is it yet another coincidence that Dalsan was closely linked with the likes of the Sheikh Osman and Hashi 'Ayro brothers, all of whom were leading figures in the Al-Itihaad precursor of the Islamic Courts militia? And is it still another mere coincidence that the extremist forces within the ICU received a massive infusion of arms and men in the same month that Dalsan collapsed – reinforcements that tipped the scales in the
Islamists' battle with U.S.-backed factions for control of Mogadishu?" Pham asks in his report written in 2006.

Source: The Somaliland Times Reporter and Reuters