Staff for Sports ministry skipped work for 2 years but paid – Minister unveils

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Staff for Sports ministry skipped work for 2 years but paid – Minister unveils

MOGADISHU (HORN Observer) - For more than two years, Somalia's taxpayers have been digging into their pockets to pay salaries of the staff of the country's sports ministry who had not been in office, the incumbent minister confirmed.

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MOGADISHU (HORN Observer) - For more than two years, Somalia's taxpayers have been digging into their pockets to pay salaries of the staff of the country's sports ministry who had not been in office, the incumbent minister confirmed.

In what seems to be the first confession to embezzlement in the government offices, the country’s sports minister, Hamse Sa’ed Hamsa said ministry's meetings were carried at homes and hotels.

"When I was assuming the office, there were no staff operating at offices, the meeting of the ministry used to take place private residential and hotels. The staff had been their salaries while working from their homes,’ the minister said.

Khadija Mohamed Diriye, the predecessor of Hamsa, who was serving the ministry from 2017 to late 2020 has not yet commented on the allegations.

Somalia ranks as the world's most corrupt country due to the lawlessness and lack of accountability in the Horn of Africa, which was beset by three decades of bloody conflict.

Early this month, a report by Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) had revealed that Somali senior officials among them ministers at Federal Government and Puntland State Government are central to facilitating illegal and unregulated fishing in the country’s waters.

According to the report, Fishy Business: Illegal fishing in Somalia and the capture of state institutions by Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), the ministries of fisheries at the federal level and Puntland government either collude or operate separately in facilitating or taking part in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) in Somali waters.

Operating as either business partners or relatives, the government officials particularly in the Ministry of Fisheries and Finance exploit their positions to illegally issue fishing licenses and health certificates to companies in which they have a stake or for kickbacks in cases where there is no stake, the report argues.