27 November 2009

Kampala — Failure by African Union officials to account for millions of dollars for Somalia operations has dried up payments for the 4,500 peace-keeping troops after upset donors abruptly halted disbursements.

A top diplomat says this could affect the morale of the soldiers to tackle threats from radical Al Shabab militants bidding to topple Sheik Sharif's beleaguered Federal Transitional Government.

Ambassador Nicholas Bwakira, AU's special representative to Somalia, told the Voice of America in an interview published yesterday, that Ugandan and Burundian troops in the restive Mogadishu were last given allowances in May.

"This has a very bad impact on the morale of the troops and that of the government concerned," the envoy said, citing already 80 deaths of AU troops, as further disincentive.

Uganda has lost 37 troops in Somalia while Burundi, the other only troop-contributing African country, has had 43 of its soldiers felled, mainly in roadside bomb explosions.

With each soldier on duty in Mogadishu budgeted to earn an average $550 (about Shs1 million) each month, the arrears due to the 3,000 UPDF soldiers alone over the months, the seventh being the ending November, thus add to some $11.6 million (Shs21.6 billion).

Yesterday, Defence Spokesman Felix Kulayigye, said the ministry has been "engaging" officials at the AU headquarters over the financial blues, but the outstanding arrears for the peacekeepers is for four months.

"We are confident the matter will be sorted out sooner rather than later," he said, adding, "Our troops know that they are not in Mogadishu for money. They have a mission to accomplish and are doing their work very well."

He said soldiers deployed on the Somalia mission are having their monthly pay from the army here wired to their accounts regularly.

The bad news is that AU is broke and incoming international financing, including under the $295 million (Shs551 billion) pledged at the April donor's conference in Brussels, is but just a trickle.

For instance, the Somali government has thus far got three million dollars of the pledged funds, with the US offering $2 million and the Arab League $1 million.

The Somali Treasury Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman, who spoke to the Voice of America, worried about a bleak future for his government that is now stuck with a programme to train 10,000 Police as well as 5,000 soldiers.

"Most of the regions in [Somalia] are now controlled by al-Shabab that has links with Al-Qaeda," Mr Osman said.

"So, if this continues, what will happen is [that] the Al-Shabab will become the next government and we will see the next Afghanistan in Somalia and that is what we don't want."

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