Questions on the PM’s curious apology to the UAE

EDITORIAL- There was a spectacle on Friday in Mogadishu. Prime Minister Hussein Roble issued a profuse apology to the United Arab Emirates for how security forces confiscated the $9.6 million in cash that had arrived at the Aden Adde International Airport.

Roble apologized to the UAE officials as he received their donation of humanitarian aid to support Somalis hit by drought in the country.  To be clear, any sensible man or woman on earth can always apologize, especially when you learn you were wrong.

There are doubts about Roble’s sincerity, however. The incident in question happened in 2018. At the time, Roble wasn’t in the picture. He was a technocrat at some UN office in Nairobi as UAE delivered a curious cash load to Somalia. They argued that the money was going to pay Somali soldiers. Somalia argued the money was part of the Middle Eastern ploy to destabilize the country by oiling the hands of some of its opponents. To date, there has been no clarity on which unit of the forces was to be paid, whether it was delivered from another source or under what arrangement the UAE was paying Somali troops.

But the more significant issue was that the UAE wasn’t on good terms with the government of Mohamed Farmaajo. Having lost out to Qatar, the UAE remained fighting for crumbs, and every one of its focal points was shut. An airbase the UAE was putting up was stalled, and Osman Jawari, then-Speaker of the Lower House, quit under a truckload of accusations he was undermining the government.

On Friday, Farmaajo ordered the Somali Central Bank not to release the cashback to the UAE, despite the PM's apology and promise to return the money. Farmaajo argues the money entered the country illegally. Indeed, Roble wasn’t in government then, but Farmaajo’s statement only showed the gulf that has grown between the two.

Yet the question Roble needs to answer is why make this revelation today when he has been in government for a year and is aware of the money sitting at the Central Bank? If the money had indeed been seized erroneously, the procedure for returning is straightforward: The Central Bank needs to be authorized to make the remittance.

But this didn’t sound like a genuine apology. Roble used the occasion to pay back Farmaajo in his coin: Cancel culture. Farmaajo, whose term expired in February, has been good at it for years, blaming others for missed targets, taking credit for others, and undercutting those who seem popular. Roble shouldn’t have swallowed that bait. To make the offer to the UAE now looks like a political move to checkmate Qatar. It is no wonder UAE diplomats have been touring the country, ostensibly seeking to support the electoral program that has stalled.

There is no harm in countries rebuilding broken ties. But apologies that look like political morsels can be more damaging to the credibility of the Prime Minister.

GAROWE ONLINE