Half of the foreign exchange inflow to Somalia is done by countless moneytransfer from abroad.
It is evident; UK and USA want to molest and distroy Somalia. The measure taken will spread hatred and maintain the reservoir of terrorists.
QUOTE
But on 30 September, those hopeful prospects
will be thrown into jeopardy when Barclays closes the accounts of 250
Somali MTOs, including Dahabshiil, which is much the biggest of the lot.
Barclays
initially announced, in a letter to Dahabshiil and others dated 8 May,
that the accounts would be closed on 30 July. It wrote: “Acceptance and
eligibility criteria have been amended for customers in this sector,
which unfortunately means we will no longer be able to provide banking
services to businesses that fall outside of these.”
For
everyone involved in helping to haul Somalia back from the brink after
its years of civil war and famine, the disastrous implications were
immediately clear. Simon Levine of the Overseas Development Institute
said: “The famine of 2011 is largely over, so we’re back to the
situation where one in seven young children are so skinny that they are
classified as ‘acutely malnourished’… If Barclays pull out of Somalia
and there is no way to send money, what happens when families whose kids
are already malnourished lose a quarter of their income? And what
happens to the economy, to jobs, to investment when a quarter of the
money just disappears? There is a risk that the consequences could be
even worse and much longer-lasting than the 2011 famine itself.”
Ahmed Aliubaxle, freight forwarder: 'Without Dahabshiil … the only way would be to fly to China with a suitcase full of dollars'
For the international aid community, the severing of the remittance
pipeline threatens to spark a new Somali emergency. And the effect on
the agencies is even more direct than that, because in the absence of
banks, they depend on the MTOs to funnel aid money to their Somali
projects. The vast majority of them, including Oxfam, Care International
and World Vision, use Dahabshiil, as does the United Nations.
Founded
in 1970 in Burao, near Hargeisa, Dahabshiil’s head office is in
Whitechapel in east London, while in Somalia it has 268 agencies across
the country. Inside Somaliland, where its dominance is overwhelming, it
describes itself as a bank and fulfils all of a bank’s normal functions.
With
5,000 employees spread across 150 countries, this family-owned company
has become big and profitable enough to keep abreast of the
ever-changing regulations of the banking sector in Europe and the US.
During a 15-year relationship, Barclays has regularly acknowledged that
Dahabshiil is fully compliant with industry regulations.
As
a UK banking industry insider confirmed, it is US not British
regulators that are setting the pace in the crackdown, following the
massive fines imposed last year on HSBC ($1.9bn) and Standard Chartered
($330m) for facilitating money-laundering. “The main pressure is from
the US regulator,” he said. “They are the ones on the hunt.”
The
irony is that, just one month before Barclays’ announcement, Dahabshiil
received a ringing endorsement in the US. Seeking a solution to
transparency problems with Somali MTOs, a US Bankcorp spokesman said:
“We are pleased that we may have recently found a solution with one
remitter – Dahabshiil… We are currently in discussions with this
remitter to ensure all parties understand the terms and requirements
necessary.”
The Barclays bombshell provoked a storm of
protest and concern, and Barclays responded by extending the deadline to
30 September. But it has so far refused to contemplate a U-turn.
Writing to Oxfam, Anthony Jenkins, the Barclays chief executive, said:
“There are a number of serious concerns about the operation [of MTOs],
with the sector at particular risk of being used for the transmission of
the proceeds of crime, for money laundering, and for terrorist
financing. This risk is exacerbated by a lack of transparency on who the
remitters and end-receivers are in transactions.”
In
Nairobi last week, Abdirashid Duale, Dahabshiil’s chief executive, said:
“It’s all to do with fear. The banks are worried about Somalia because
all they read is bad news about piracy, Al-Shabaab [the militant
Al-Qa’ida offshoot] and so on – but they never go to Somalia to see for
themselves. They fear that some day, something might happen, and ever
since 9/11 Somalia has been harassed and stigmatised because of that
fear. But the fact is that all the 9/11 terrorists used Western banking
institutions… We are not asking any favours. If any company broke the
law, they should face the law.”
Mr Duale has drafted a
set of proposals to address the banks’ fears: improving the
institutional capacity of the MTOs in technology and compliance systems,
setting up third-party monitoring and certification inside Somalia,
helping the Somali government to introduce biometric scanning to remove
uncertainty about the identity of recipients, and setting up a fund
which would effectively insure the Western banks against financial
penalties. He also agrees on the need for greater collaboration between
Somali MTOs. “We Somalis need to work together, or we will die
together,” he said.
But so far there is no indication
that Barclays will grant the MTOs a year of grace, as Oxfam and others
have demanded. So what solutions are open to Somalis who want to
maintain the lifeline to their families?
The obvious
answer is to go back to the old-fashioned, unregulated,
hole-in-the-corner hawala firms, which rely on the trust between members
of the same Somali clans. “Somalis will find a way,” said Ed Pomfret,
Oxfam’s campaigns and policy manager in Somalia. “We’re asking Somalis
to pack suitcases with cash and carry it to Mogadishu. For a government
dedicated to fighting money laundering, that doesn’t make any sense.”
Killing the patient to cure the disease...
$1.3bn
Total remitted to Somalia annually, about half of its national income
40
Percentage of Somalis relying on remittances
250
MTOs who will have their UK accounts closed
UNQUOTE
Remarks
UK is to be considered a state of the USA. They as well as all European countries (not only EU-members) are not aware of the fact that they leave demographically promising Sub-Sahara-Africa to China, India, Brazil.
copyright thomas ramseyer
