By Steve Liddle
The country’s big six telecom companies are undermining
the government by evading taxes and refusing to cooperate on surveillance.
After the recent change of leader in the year-long Somali
Federal government (SFG) there is again concern about the way forward, as
powerful financial factions are still operating within the country.
Given the relative success of this administration, formed
with the help of the UN and international community following the failure of
previous Transitional Federal Governments (TFGs), it is timely to examine the
forces and circular logics operating against it. And the roles of the
international community, Arab League and powerful Somali business groupings.
When the International community called a June meeting in
Brussels to discuss what in historical language was called “A New Deal for Somalia”,
it soon became clear that there was little new in the circular logic of their
decision-making. In refusing to make available the pledged $1.8 billion (Dh6.6
billion) because local banking institutions were not functioning, thus
depriving the government of an ability to develop important institutions
including the financial sector, the EU effectively dealt the government a body
blow.
This decision was also confusing and inconsistent as big
sums were somehow delivered to states within Somalia, such as Somaliland and
Puntland, rather than to a federal government recognised by both the UN and the
United States. Such actions sent mixed messages and did little to support an
already undermined government.
Somali embassy spokesman in Abu Dhabi, Hussain Mohammad,
says that the EU should immediately initiate desperately needed projects
including wells, hospitals, schools and roads. “Even if only roads connecting
Mogadishu with all centres. These things have immediate benefits for common
people … and many are in complete ruin,” Mohammad said.
The role of regional powers, helpful in bringing an end
to the piracy problem, has also been mixed. The convention called by the UAE in
September, the third in three years, played a significant part in formulating
policies for the elimination of piracy. However, such initiatives seem driven
largely by business self-interest, with little help from the Arab League in
finding solutions to the menace of internal pirates in Somalia: remittance and
telecommunication operators.
For it is within Somalia’s own business sector that
pirates, of the airwaves in particular, are responsible for another circular
logic bedevilling successive governments: tax avoidance. Without tax compliance
the best of governments flounder — and cannot sufficiently finance police, army
and other forms of security which are the bedrock of business confidence and
civic institutions.
Based in Mogadishu, Somalia’s big six telecommunications
“companies” are all offshoots of, or modelled on, those business pirates who
seized government facilities after the collapse of the last government in 1991.
Following the ouster of Somalia’s warlords from the capital by Amisom (African
Union Mission in Somalia) troops and their more recent clearing of radical Al
Shabaab militias, this more insidious invasion has been gathering strength. And
huge wealth.
Moreover, these self-styled telcos continue to control
and exploit Somalia’s citizens in ways both unfair and corrosive. What is
immediately damaging, in terms of lives, is their ability to prevent a fragile
government from starving militia of communications. An electronic blockade
could help isolate a militia known to be trained largely by foreign terrorists.
With control of mobile-phone technology authorities could
accurately identify, profile and locate offenders simply by regulating the
users. Responsible governments have realised it is reasonable to expect all
mobile-owners to register their SIM card at telecommunications offices,
complete with identifying documents. Those not doing so are cut off immediately
from the network.
Given the importance of communications, especially for a
country of more than 10 million with a huge diaspora all over the western
world, these telcos have become wealthy pariahs. Without firing a shot, this
mafia charges refugees and citizens for communications necessary for
re-development and community rebuilding. How did this form of electronic piracy
happen? What makes these “businesses” so impregnable?
The mechanism of this wealth creation is no secret. By
persuading other telcos worldwide to clip the ticket for them, these groups has
become wealthy enough to avoid attempts by government and the regulatory
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to rein them in.
Not only do these groups exploit vulnerable customers
charging them often beyond their means and disproportionate to costs, there are
also suspicions that some sponsor the terrorist scourge, Al Shabaab.
By negotiating with foreign companies to charge above the
usual rates and to put money collected into overseas funds, these “companies”
avoid tax — and have sufficient clout to offer deals to favoured factions, or
fund groups they believe will deliver a government suited to their economic or
ideological aims.
Given this situation, such circular traps, what can be
done to bolster a legitimate government?
As the special representative of the secretary-general
for Somalia said recently in his 90-day review to the Security Council, the
tackling of Somalia’s terrorism requires a comprehensive approach: political,
military and developmental.
Praising Somalia for increasingly addressing problems
through political processes, Nicholas Kay also called for “enhanced judicial
security structures and systems” in the light of the assassination of four
judges in November.
The UN, he reported, is providing increased technical
assistance to police and security groups, allowing Somalia’s national army to
benefit from a “targeted logistics package when engaged in joint operations
with Amisom”. However he cautioned that Al Shabaab is still targeting
international partners, including the UN. Announcing plans to open a third
centre for “disengaged combatants from armed groups”, those who have defected
from terrorist groups, he added the Westgate attack had also galvanised
international support for both Amisom and Somali national forces.
However, the scant coverage of the killing of an MP when
his car was blown up recently outside the parliament is revealing not just of
the threat of ruthless militias but also of continuing psychological pressures
upon both the government and media.
Crisis fatigue and downplaying stories is a reality, but
self-censorship and partisan pressures — particularly in smaller centres dominated
by Al Shabaab — can be as damaging to the strength of civic institutions as
shooting either judges or messengers.
Though not specifically mentioned in Kay’s review,
Somalia desperately needs regulatory policing to rein in telco opportunists who
decades ago pirated premises, equipment and bandwidths — and continue without
operators’ licence and refuse to pay spectrum fees or tax. Unless checked, they
will seriously undermine any government’s long-term ability to act
independently, without UN, EU or World Bank assistance. Especially when
constantly delayed assistance is justified by the logic of institutional
insecurity — or is conditional upon so many unilateral restrictions, it can
appear like some form of neo-colonial patronage.
The measures made possible by the $1.8 billion pledged —
and the confidence in autonomy it represents — are particularly important in
the lead-up to the planned 2016 elections. Somalia was the first state in
Africa to hold such elections some 50 years ago next year.
Though characterising progress so far as “chequered”, Kay
said that Somali political institutions in the past three months had proved
strong enough to resolve major problems, such as a no-confidence vote, without
bloodshed.
Mohammad Ebrahim, information and communications
technology (ICT) adviser to the Somali government for the past four years,
agrees. However, he said, while telcos and remittance companies had made
gap-filling contributions in the rebuilding of Somalia, the time had now come
for them to work with the government.
“Paying tax is the foundation of any social contract,
while the rule of law strengthens government’s mandate to develop the whole
country,” Ebrahim said.
Calling for both Somali telecos and remittance companies
to collaborate with government, Ebrahim cited the Somali transfer firm
Dahabshill recently winning an injunction in the UK to prevent Barclays from
cutting its banking services. “There are clear advantages to working in a
business environment where the rule of law exists,” Ebrahim said.
And it is also essential for survival. When the ITU’s
Telecom World Event convened in Bangkok in November, the hurricane in the
Philippines had cut land communications, making rescues difficult. Alerted by
major news outlets, ITU and other global telecos soon had communications
restored by providing emergency communications equipment.
A Somali delegate at the event congratulated them, while
commiserating with the victims. He then revealed that just days later, in the
northeast of Somalia, more than one hundred people had died — with hundreds
more missing — in a tropical cyclone so rare that there is no Somali word for
it.
Initially, no humanitarian effort was even possible, he
continued, because no one knew about it. This was because of a lack of phone
coverage in that area, in contradiction to the universal service provision
specifically prescribed by local laws to allow for “access to communication for
all”. For though Somalis know the many satellites in permanent orbit above them
as well as they know their stars, none of those satellites’ bouncing beams
could connect Somalis to each other — nor to the outside world.
In the competitive world of international communications
such links simply do not pay, and there aren’t the political connections to
apply the necessary pressure to offer even compassionate deals, as done by some
telcos operating in the Philippines.
If this is the price you pay for being off-satellite,
under the radar of world news, it is a high one. How can a recovering state
with tax-evading businesses, with big, oil-the-machinery budgets, counter the
misuse of money that can be brought to the table?
If strict provisions on remittances are problematic,
perhaps the EU banker guardians could themselves devise supply solutions
enabling effective measures against home-grown subversives?
This rogue behaviour of financial warlords is well
entrenched. It is a major contributor to an insecurity often used to excuse
delaying finance for denying Somalia the very means to restore security.
If the pledged funds are released, Somalia can afford the
watchdogs needed to end the reign of this new wave of swaggering pirates.
Steve Liddle is a freelance journalist now travelling in
the region and researching the history of civil society.
Source: Golfnews.com
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