SOMALILAND: President Bihi Sacks 3 Ministers Implicated in Corruption Charges

His Excellency the President of the Republic of Somaliland, Musa Bihi Abdi, today, sacked three key ministers implicated by leaked audit reports on embezzlement and fraudulent practices.

In a presidential Decree dated today, Saturday, 30 March 2019, the president, along with a number of their government officials, stripped ministerial immunity from Abdirahman Abdullahi Farah derie’Guribarwaqo’, Minister for Information, his Vice Minister, Mohamed Musa Abess, and Ex-Minister for Defense, Essa Ahmed Yussuf Abdalla.

All three ministers, as the Attorney General, confirmed to Horn Cable TV, were implicated by a report which the Auditor General submitted to his office, to formalize prosecution charges against them. The same report also indicated that a number of other government officials, including the Director-General and the Finance Director at Information, were also mired by shady dealings in the same chain, and over-inflated services running into hundreds of thousands of Dollars pilfered from the Ministry budget.

Now that immunity has been stripped off the ministers, the Attorney-General’s office can proceed with the Information, Defense and similar cases if it finds sufficient ground to do so.

President Bihi vowed that he will fight corruption among government ranks with all means under his disposal. It was one of the more pronounced factors in his manifesto which tipped the balance in his favor to win the presidential election in late 2017.

A Number of Director-Generals lost their offices in the same Decree. Others got transferred to other portfolios.

Source: Somtribune