Officials of the Federal Government of Somalia have raised grave concerns about misgovernance and the maladministration of certain donor-funded activities at Somalia’s Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, which directly implicates the Director General of the Ministry, Mohamed Saney Dalmar.
According to individuals who say they have knowledge of the matter, growing instances have been recorded where the director general of the ministry has been implicated in irregularities in the management of some externally funded projects, including the cancellation of planned activities, delays in staff salary payments and coercive treatment of ministry personnel in a bid for him to secure a way to siphon World Bank-funded projects, especially BOOST-YOU, which is formerly known as Baxnaano.
The government employees who spoke to Shabelle today on condition of anonymity have described a very worrisome situation and reported that the director general had openly stated that he “defies financial management, procurement and accountability standards” that donors have established and they have called for urgent remedial actions to salvage the World Bank-funded social protection scheme for Somalia that is now being subjected to the “greed and extortionist attitude” of the director general, Mohamed Saney Dalmar, who has been “threatening the government staff that either their jobs would be in danger or they would have to succumb to his coercive attitude”.
Staff in the ministry additionally claimed that almost all ongoing projects, including another social protection project called SAGAL in the ministry, are in “jeopardy” because of what they described as his unhidden attitude “to extort from the projects, or else he would make the employee concerned effectively jobless and unable to carry out their assigned duties”. Another staff member added that ‘the work of the ministry has been effectively paralysed. The source further divulged that employees working on the SAGAL project had complied with what were described as “his illegal demands because they feared the consequences of refusing”.
Some officials reported that the Director General publicly claimed that he has a “senior government official shielding him from accountability action” and that he has “total freedom to use his authority in doing whatever he is doing now”, while he “openly threatened that no one will be spared from his actions unless they do his illegal demands or he will deny them salary, block them from travelling on work-related missions or even demote them”.
The activities of Mohamed Saney Dalmar, who was transferred from two previous ministries due to similar accusations, have attracted significant attention within the federal government of Somalia at a time when the government has been stating its drive to strengthen good governance, transparency and accountability to enhance public trust and reinforce the confidence of international development partners.
The director general’s actions could “erode trust in donor-funded programmes, jeopardise accountable governance efforts, and raise concerns among development partners about public resource management”, says a senior government official who previously worked with the director general at the Ministry of Commerce, adding that “we all knew that this behaviour was his modus operandi during his previous time at the Ministry of commerce and now I see that nothing has changed in his attitude, even in this third ministry.”
Governance experts say Somalia cannot afford controversies involving public officials, particularly at a time when the country is supposed to be working to strengthen public institutions and maintain the confidence of its citizens and international development partners. They note that transparency, accountability and effective oversight are essential to ensuring that donor-funded programmes are implemented efficiently, lawfully and for the benefit of the Somali people.
One legal expert called on the relevant oversight institutions to conduct a prompt, independent and impartial investigation into the director general’s conduct and to take appropriate corrective action in accordance with the law.
