Thursday, September 19, 2013
Abdusalam Omer has been
replaced as Somalia's central bank governor after seven months
in the job, he said on Thursday, once again strongly denying
graft allegations made by United Nations monitors.The allegations in a U.N. report linking him to
irregularities regarding millions of dollars withdrawn from the
bank have also been formally rejected by the Somali government.
The U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea said in
July that Mogadishu's central bank had become a "slush fund" for
political leaders and that Omer had played a central role in
irregularities surrounding unaccountable disbursements.
Omer, who has labelled the allegations malicious, said he
was informed by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Sept. 13 that
changes would be made at the bank. He submitted a letter of
resignation the same day, he said.
Somalia has been struggling to rebuild its institutions and
battered finances after two decades of conflict and chaos.
Better management of public finances is seen by donors as vital
to secure a recovery, debt relief and budget support.
Speaking in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Omer told Reuters
by phone he was given no reason for the decision.
But he said it "is a possibility" that the government
decided to remove him as a result of the report, even though an
international probe commissioned by Mogadishu had dismissed its
findings.
"My thinking is this: that if you play by the rules and you
assemble a team, both diaspora and local people, and try to
reform a dormant and important institution called the central
bank, I guess you have no place in Somalia," Omer said.
He said he would return to Somalia next week to conduct a
handover.
A Somali financial source and Somali media said Omer's
replacement was Yussur Abrar. One Somali report said Abrar, who
has worked in commercial banking abroad, was the country's first
woman governor of the central bank.
Officials could not immediately confirm the new appointment.
In Omer's letter of resignation, obtained by Reuters, the
former governor listed his achievements, such as producing the
bank's first balance sheet for 22 years.
In the letter, he said he was resigning with "regret and
disappointment" and had told staff to ensure a smooth handover.
The Mogadishu government had commissioned FTI Consulting and
a U.S. law firm to investigate the U.N. monitoring report
findings. FTI's chairman for the Europe, Middle East and Africa
region is British peer and former minister Mark Malloch-Brown,
once a deputy secretary general of the United Nations.
Somalia's recovery is being hampered by an ongoing Islamist
insurgency, deep-seated clan loyalties that continue to govern
the way politics and business is conducted and vested interests
of powerful politicians.