The United Kingdom has promised to strengthen trade and investment links with the East African Community Partner States for mutual benefit.

UK High Commissioner to Tanzania, Ms Sarah Cooke, said that her country would remain an outward focused trade-based economy with strong partnerships with other countries and regional economic blocs even in the wake of Brexit.

The high commissioner was speaking after she presented her credentials to the EAC Secretary General, Ambassador Liberat Mfumukeko, at the EAC Headquarters in Arusha. Ms Cooke said the UK would create new partnerships with the EAC aimed at promoting private sector-led economic growth for employment creation and poverty reduction in the East African region.

The envoy disclosed that the UK was the biggest contributor to Trade- Mark East Africa (TMEA), adding that the funding to TMEA was being utilised to finance technical assistance to the EAC in sectors such as customs, trade, investment and video teleconferencing.

On his side, Amb. Mfumukeko said his priorities over the next four years would be to promote the free movement of persons and labour as enshrined in the EAC Common Market Protocol; increase investment for job creation and improve agriculture to ensure food security and create employment for the youth in East Africa.

By Yahaya Ibrahim and John Chuks Azu

A federal judge in Lagos yesterday ruled the sum of $153 million (N34 billion) linked to a former Petroleum Minister Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke be forfeited to the Federal Government.

Justice Muslim Sule Hassan of Federal High Court ruled in favour of the anti-graft agency, the EFCC, which last month filed a forfeiture request.

It alleged that the money was diverted from the coffers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) by the former petroleum minister.

The anti-graft commission first filed an ex-parte application for forfeiture but Justice Hassan on January 6 only issued an interim order.

The money, which was in different currencies, was stashed in three banks.

The judge issued a 14-day ultimatum to any interested party to appear before it and prove the legitimacy of the monies.

Several bank executives were involved but only one of them filed an application to claim N9.8 billion of the said money.

His lawyer, Charles Adeogun, had urged the court to issue an order, directing a refund of the sum of N9.08billion out of the said sum which the respondent claimed belonged to him.

He had urged the court to order a refund of the said money on the grounds that it was obtained by coercion.

But EFCC’s lawyer, Rotimi Oyedepo, had urged the court to make the interim order absolute and order a final forfeiture of the sums to the federal government.

He had also urged the court to order the forfeiture of other sums to which no claim had been made.

Oyedepo submitted that section 17 of the Advanced Fee Fraud and other related offence Act makes a property which is reasonably suspected to be proceeds of crime, forfeitable to the FG.

He argued that paragraph 4 of the applicant’s reply affidavit shows a meeting of the minds of some staffs of NNPC as well as the respondent to launder funds.

“My lord, paragraph 4 of our reply affidavit shows a meeting of the minds of one Gbenga Komolafe, former group MD, Crude Oil Marketing ivision of NNPC, Prince Haruna Momoh, former group MD Petroleum Product Marketing Company, Umar Farouk Ahmed, group MD Nigerian Product Marketing Company as well as Dauda Lawal, to launder funds on behalf of former petroleum minister, Diezani Allison Madueke,” Oyedepo added.

Delivering his judgment yesterday, Justice Hassan ordered a final forfeiture of the unclaimed sum of N23, 426,300.00 and $5 million to the Federal Government.

He also ordered the final forfeiture of the N9.8 billion the second defendants claimed belong to him.

“I have carefully examined the affidavit evidence before the court and I find that the second respondent was duly cautioned in English language before his statement was taken and so, I hold that same was taken without any evidence of inducement.

“On the whole I am satisfied that all the conditions stated in section 17 of the Advanced Fee Fraud and other Related offence Act, was duly fulfilled by the applicant(EFCC),” the judge held.

“I hereby make an order pursuant to section 17 of the Advanced fee fraud and other fraud related offences Act 2016, for final forfeiture of the unclaimed sum of N23,426,300.000.00 billion and 5 million united states dollars to the Federal government finally.”

There are more than 15 applications for forfeiture filed by the EFCC in several courts.

By Frederic Musisi

Kampala — Energy minister Irene Muloni, disclosed Tuesday, that government has given the three oil joint venture (JV) partners, France’s Total E&P, UK’s Tullow Oil and China’c Cnooc, up to December 31 as deadline for closing Final Investment Decision (FID) on proposed investments in the next development and production phases leading to Uganda’s first oil.

Ms Muloni also reiterated that government remains on first commercial oil starting flowing four years from now – a date which is somewhat impractical given the amount of work that remains undone.

With financial aid taps lately getting drier the government wants oil revenues more than ever before and on which they are borrowing heavily as a guarantee.

“As government we are very anxious and committed to this,” she said, while presiding over contract signing for the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) study between the JV partners and a consortium of French and US firms.

The Shs8b ($2.5m) FEED contract was awarded to Flour (France) working with China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation (CPECC), Technip (France), and Chicago Bridge & Iron Company (US).

FEED is the last preparatory stage that will detail technical requirements, among others, layout of the 36 well pads, technology required for drilling the 400 wells, and estimated costs of required infrastructure to start production on (EA1) at the northern end of Lake Albert (in the Murchison Falls National Park) operated by Total in Nwoya District and Exploration Area 2 (EA2) to the east of Lake Albert in Buliisa District previously operated by Tullow but sold majority stake to the former early this year.

Total’s general manager Adewale Fayemi, said the FEED will also entail engineering designs for the proposed 200,000 barrels Central Processing Facility (CPF) in Hoima.

This will also include design studies for feeder pipelines that will evacuate crude oil from Exploration Area 3 (3A)-Kingfisher in Kaiso-Tonya and nearby oil wells to the planned CPF in Hoima District.

A CPF is where oil will be stored first for stabilisation and treatment before being fed into either the proposed refinery or crude oil export pipeline to Tanzania.

The CPF in Hoima is also expected to generate 35 megawatts of electricity that will run field operations from natural gas from fields.

Another CPF will be constructed in Buliisa for oil fields in the area and in Nwoya (operated by Total) and is expected to generate 70 megawatts from gas reserves.

Mr Fayemi, speaking on behalf the JV partners, described the FEED contractors as having “invaluable experience” and expressed optimism that they will fast track the work at hand within schedule. The FEED study will run concurrently with the environmental impact and social assessment (ESIAs) and land acquisition and resettlement planning, for all the projects planned.

The FEED for EIA 1 and EIA 2 follows the awarding eight production licences to Total and Tullow last year in August last year. Once FEED is completed, will give a clear picture of how much the JV partners need to invest (FID) – although earlier projections showed the oil firms would invest up to $8b (about Shs27 trillion) – and propel to the last phase Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) leading to production.

Although government says the JV partners have up to December to close FID, usually this takes more than a year after FEED. EPC takes between two to three years.

The FEED will draw several engineers, especially expatriates but executives of the contracted firms said they will prioritise local content by tapping into available expertise.

Current plans are to fast-track works on the Kingfisher field, whose production licence was granted earlier in 2013.

Its licence had been initially, conditionally awarded to Tullow in February 2012 but after which the Anglo-Irish explorer sold (farmed down) 66.66 per cent of its stake to both Cnooc and Total.

After the farm down under a JV arrangement in the same month Cnooc was tapped to take over Kingfisher.

Oil reserves at the field are estimated around 800 million barrels but production in advanced stages will be running at 20,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Cnooc, since 2013, then embarked on rethinking most of its earlier conceptual designs for the field, undertaking surveys for feeder pipelines to evacuate crude to the CPF, baseline studies for installation facilities, and collecting of more data on the oil wells – which are expected to feed into the major FEED project to be undertaken by Technip.

The FEED for the oil fields is separate from the FEED study ongoing for the 1,445km oil pipeline also known as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) running from Hoima via Kiboga, Mubende, Ssembabule, Masaka and Rakai en route to Tanga port at the Indian Ocean. The pipeline FEED announced last month was awarded to US based Gulf Interstate Engineering.

Optimism of the refinery

Ms Muloni also said they are in advanced stages of zeroing down on a lead financer/designer for the Shs13 trillion refinery of 30,000 bpd but will be scaled up to 60,000 bpd.

Following the heartbreaking exit of the Russian consortium, RT Global Resources, and consequently government going back to the drawing table, she revealed that they had zeroed down on three lead investors and due diligence is ongoing to arrive at the most qualified investor for the project.

This process, she said, will be concluded by end of next month.

After the recommendation by Foster Wheeler in 2010 that the refinery was viable the government had moved and already acquired land, about 29 square miles in Hoima.

Looking at the distance so far covered, since announcement of discovery of commercial oil volunes in 2006, technocrats steering the sector often exude optimism that the 2020 date is achievable- notwithstanding that the remaining two phases leading to first oil are capital intensive, and more challengingly at the current gloom in the global oil market.

By Elias Mambo and Obey Manayiti

This week the Zimbabwe Independent — which in December last year began publishing fresh stories based on our ground-breaking investigation into the Marange alluvial diamonds discovery and subsequent looting — made a breakthrough by interviewing various security officers who were involved in gross human rights violations.

Owing to the sensitive nature of the issue, it was difficult for our investigative team to convince senior security officers to open up but, through painstaking efforts, they finally agreed to shed light into how the state wiped out the illegal diamond miners under Operation Hakudzokwi which resulted in untold suffering, arbitrary arrests and deaths of artisanal miners at the hands of ruthless security forces.

This special series is supported by the Investigative Journalism Fund and will continue for months.

“There was fear within the Joint Operations Command (Joc) at sub-national level that, if left unabated, the chaos in Marange would degenerate into a civil war because the ‘mashurugwis’ and the ‘machipinges’ who had invaded Chiadzwa were causing untold sufferings to other illegal miners and the villagers,” a senior military official who was deployed in Chiadzwa said this week.

“We had seen what had happened in Sierra Leone so the army had to move in. Chiadzwa is close to the Mozambique border which has guns everywhere and, as conflict in Marange escalated, there was danger these arms would find their way into the country as illegal miners and militias sought to defend their territories,” he said.

Sierra Leone suffered terrible social and economic costs as a result of its civil war and the fight over diamond control. Under the cover of warfare, the rebels committed heinous crimes against humanity in the form of murder, rape, and mutilation. The war between 1991 and 1999 claimed over 75 000 lives, caused 500 000 Sierra Leoneans to become refugees, and displaced half of the country’s 4,5 million people. Also during this period, the Sierra Leone economy was robbed of hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of illegal diamonds.

A senior Joc officer this week narrated how the state moved into Marange after thousands of illegal miners invaded the diamond fields.

“At the peak of illegal mining, close to 35 000 people invaded Marange and the violence was becoming a regional conflict as people from regional countries were also caught up in the chaos,” the officer said.

Between 2006 and 2007, Joc at sub-national level — which includes the heads of the army, police and Central Intelligence Organisation but without ministers — launched Operation Chikorokoza Chapera to remove illegal miners from Chiadzwa.

Despite this operation having been launched countrywide, it was escalated in Marange where it entailed searches, arrests and torture. During the operation, police deployed some 600 police officers, arrested about 22 500 persons nationwide whom it said were illegal miners (some 9 000 of them were arrested in Marange), and seized gems and minerals with an estimated total value of US$7 million.

The operation was marked by human rights abuses, corruption, extortion and smuggling. Many former farm workers who had been deprived of their livelihoods during the fast-track land reform programme, as well as small traders who had been deprived of their market stalls by Operation Murambatsvina (clean up) in 2005, were affected.

Government then launched Operation Hakudzokwi in 2008 aimed at ensuring that the illegal diamond miners were thoroughly tortured and terrified that they would not countenance returning to Marange.

“This was more brutal than any other operation you can think of. It made some people to even leave this country and in my whole life in the security I have never seen such brutality as the security details made sure that whoever was caught would either die or never return to Marange,” said one senior army official this week.

In 2008, soldiers from 3 Brigade in Mutare and military commandos were the first to arrive in Marange to crack down on illegal diamond miners.

“We unleashed overwhelming force as the aim was to make sure no one comes back,” a military officer said, adding: “However, the operation was let down by several officers who began to form syndicates with the miners in order to get diamonds or money as the army was failing to feed its officers.

Operation Hakudzokwi came at a time when Zimbabwe was experiencing hyperinflation which rose to world record levels until the country abandoned the Zimbabwe dollar in favour of the US dollar.

“As a result of the hyperinflation and a serious economic meltdown, the soldiers soon formed syndicates with the illegal miners as they had to fend for a living just as the illegal miners were doing,” the senior officer said.

It was during this period that Zimbabwean soldiers rampaged on the streets of Harare, assaulting people and committing robbery amid a serious liquidity crisis and severe food shortages.

About 100 soldiers looking for foreign currency dealers in the outskirts of Harare began beating up anyone in their way.

According to a Human Rights Watch report entitled Diamonds in the Rush, to guarantee for themselves a cut of the diamond revenue, police officers formed “syndicates” with local miners.

“A syndicate was a group of miners that operated under the direct control of members of the police. Groups of between two and five police officers would partner with a large group of local miners under a loose arrangement where police provided the local miners security and escort in the fields in return for a share of proceeds from selling any diamonds the local miners found,” reads the report

A briefing note by senior police officer Assistant Commissioner Nicholas Mawere to the sub-national Joc dated May 7 laid bare the looting syndicates which were formed and the severe brutality of the security operation.

The Independent has established that Mawere’s report was typed and printed at one of the big diamond mining companies in Chiadzwa because police did not have their own facilities. The document was subsequently leaked from there.

The memo written by Mawere, who commanded the Support Unit, a paramilitary wing of the police, shows how the security forces resorted to criminality for survival by raiding food that belonged to the illegal miners as well as partnering with them in exchange for illicit diamonds.

“Period ranging from 23 March to 05 April witnessed an increase in gweja (illegal diamond panner) population and activities in the area of Chiadzwa Primary and Muchena areas.

“This was attributed to connivance with gwejas by outgoing contingent of 2,2 infantry battalion. The unit formed syndicates with illegal panners towards the end of its tour of duty,” reads the memo.

“As a result the command tightened security at the illegal panning sites by pitching tents at the sites and allocating responsibilities to each officer. In addition, sweep-up operations were conducted in the area to deal with increased gweja population.”

The memo also states that “disciplinary action has been taken against the offending officers. Since the operation started, 14 officers including the commander of Jesse base were expelled from the operation.”

Mawere, who was leading Operation Hakudzokwi, has since been fired after his memo was leaked to the public.

“Joc was very angry with Mawere after his memo leaked and accused him of incompetence in handling sensitive documents,” an official, who was also in Chiadzwa during the operation which killed 200 people, said.

Pretoria — The President and CEO of Ford Motor Company Southern Africa, Jeff Nemeth, has announced a voluntary safety recall for certain Ford Kuga utility vehicles.

The safety recall is limited to the Kuga 1.6-litre model built between December 2012 and February 2014.

The recall of the Ford Kuga 1.6-litre comes after several reports of vehicles that have caught fire and one which resulted in the death of a man.

“We are now announcing a voluntary safety recall for the affected Ford Kuga 1.6. Our investigation has enabled us to narrow the number … to a total of 4 556 affected vehicles,” Nemeth said.

Speaking on Monday during a media briefing in Pretoria, Nemeth told reporters that a total of 39 incidents have been reported to Ford.

“With this safety recall, all affected vehicles, including those that have already been checked as part of our maintenance check, must be taken to a Ford dealer as soon as possible,” he said.

Two stages to recall

According to Nemeth, the safety recall comprises of two stages.

The first stage involves replacing affected components on the cooling system, verifying and updating the software as well as conducting an oil leak check on the cylinder.

“If any Kuga 1.6 owner sees any indication that the engine may be overheating or experiences warnings on the instrument plaster they should pull over as soon as it is safe to do so, switch off the engine and ensure that all occupants are safely out the vehicle. For safety reasons the bonnet must not be opened,” Nemeth said.

The second stage of the safety recall will make the cooling system even more robust and is likely to involve further changes and parts on the warning systems.

“We are currently ensuring that the changes we make are complete and thoroughly tested and we will communicate with our customers as soon as this stage commences,” he said.

Customers have been warned that there may be instances where dealers may not be able to complete repairing vehicles due to the increased volume of vehicles which could cause a shortage of parts.

“Should there be any delay in fixing the Kuga 1.6-litres, owners will receive a courtesy car. Together with our dealers we are working to streamline our processes to ensure minimal inconvenience to our customers.

“I want to stress that with the safety action and with the proper maintenance of the cooling system, the Kuga 1.6 is safe to drive,” Nemeth said.

Commissioner of the National Consumer Commission (NCC) Ebrahim Mohamed said the NCC has granted Ford an opportunity to conduct an investigation to find the actual cause of fire on these vehicles to enable them to repair or replace the faulty components to restore value and quality of the vehicles in line with relevant prescripts of the law.

“It is quite regrettable that a life [was] lost and that other consumers and the public at large had to be exposed to a hazard that we never would’ve expected from one of our most prized possessions, that being a car.

“There is no monetary value that can truly compensate for the loss of a life or permanent injury to a human being, and the NCC believes that recalling this vehicle is in the best interest of all consumers,” Mohamed said.

By Paul Adude

Entebbe — Along with the ongoing expansion, the automation of Entebbe International Airport will cost up to $9.5m (Shs34b), Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) managing director Rama Makuza has said.

“We are grateful to the republic of South Korea and KOICA for setting aside a $9.5m grant for the project, which commenced in March 2016, we as CAA have come up with counterpart funding of approximately $250,000 (Shs896m) towards the project that is expected to be fully delivered by 2018,” he said.

Mr Makuza made the remarks while addressing dignitaries from Korea and officials of the ministry of Works and that of Finance during the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) project midline workshop to showcase progress of the modernisation and Automation of Entebbe International Airport held in Entebbe.

He further said in addition to the modernisation and automation of the airports an operation which is a result of the memorandum of understanding between Uganda and Republic of South Korea in November 2014 to create a mechanism for improving efficiency and aviation safety at the airport.

“KOICA is to deliver a computerised maintenance management System (CMMS) and Airport operational database (AODB) system, implement the ATS Message handling system (AMHS), see improvement of Flight procedures efficiency through air traffic management and installation and commissioning of ILS/DME,” he said.

Mr Lim Doha, the resident engineer heading the works said that 3-year project that is expected to be completed by next year had 32 per cent of the works taken care of, further saying KOICA had a lot of technical survey with CAA and are currently designing the interface that will connect Uganda’s ATS Message Handling System (AMHS) with Kenya and other countries airports in the region.

South Korean Ambassador Park Jong-Dae said South Korea & Uganda will continue to strengthen their friendship through cordially working together on different projects.

By Arinze Iloani

Nigeria’s inflation rate rose to 18.72 per cent in January 2017 from 18.55 per cent recorded in December 2016 over rising prices of consumable goods and energy.

A Consumer Price Index report released yesterday by the National Bureau of Statistics indicated that communication, restaurants and hotels recorded the slowest pace of price growth in January.

“The faster pace of growth in headline inflation, year on year, were bread and cereals, meat, fish, oils and fats, potatoes, yams and other tubers, wine and spirits, clothing materials and accessories, electricity, cooking gas, liquid and solid fuels, motor cars and maintenance, vehicle spare parts and fuels and lubricants for personal transport equipment and passenger transport by road,” the report stated.

Analysis showed that on a month on month basis, headline inflation was driven by passenger transport by air, fuels and lubricants for personal transport equipment, liquid fuels, cooking gas, oils and fats, fruits, Miké cheese and eggs, fish, meat and bread and cereals.

The Food Index increased by 17.82 per cent in January, up by 0.43 percentage points from the rate recorded in December 2016, (17.39) per cent.

“During the month, all major food sub-indexes increased, with soft drinks recording the slowest pace of increase at 7.8 per cent,” the report also stated.

Price movements recorded by Core sub-index rose by 17.90 per cent in January, down by 0.20 per cent points from rates recorded in December 2016 (18.10) per cent.

“During the month, the highest increases were seen in Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels, Education and Transport growing at 27.2, 21.0 and 17.2 per cent respectively,” the report said.

Analysis showed that the Urban index rose by 20.31 per cent (year-on-year) in January from 20.12 per cent recorded in December, and the Rural index increased by 17.34 per cent in January from 17.20 per cent in December.

On month-on-month basis, the urban index rose by 1.03 per cent in January from 1.08 per cent recorded in December, while the rural index rose by 1.00 per cent in January from 1.04 per cent in December.

The Composite Food Index rose by 17.82 per cent in January 2017. The rise in the index was mainly driven by increases in prices of Bread and cereals, Meat, Oil and Fats, and Fish.

Multinational companies often talk about investing in Africa and expanding their footprint here, but few of them actually follow through on their promises to make significant contributions to setting up operations in African countries. GE is the exception and has been walking the talk in terms of funding its expansion on the continent as well as upskilling the various communities in which the company operates.

A prime example of GE’s commitment to Africa is evidenced by its phenomenal expansion in Nigeria. “The business has really grown quite a bit. Four or five years ago, we had less than 200 people and now we have over 500 people in Nigeria. We have also expanded tremendously in terms of our commitment to the supply chain  footprint,” said Lazarus Angbazo, President and CEO of GE Nigeria.

Energy  security

GE has invested in Nigeria on quite a few fronts, including power generation. After GE’s acquisition of Alstom in 2015, the company now has about 80% of the gas turbine power production facilities in the country. “We’ve also been able to expand our reach into both hydro and solar, and we’re playing in a very big way across the entire value chain within power in Nigeria,” said Mohammed Mijindadi, Managing Director of GE Gas Power Systems.

“I am proud of our partnerships with government as well as our private sector customers. We have been able to solve some of the most difficult challenges they’ve had within the power space.”

“We’ve invested millions of dollars in facilities here. One of those facilities is in Onne, where we fabricate, repair and maintain wellheads and Christmas trees [offshore power equipment]. We also have a facility in Port Harcourt, where we do maintenance on some of our equipment,” said Doyin Akinyanju, CEO of West and Central  Africa, GE Oil & Gas.

The Calabar manufacturing and assembly facility, which is under construction, is intended to be a marque development in GE’s path to localisation in Nigeria and on the African continent. Calabar will be a multi-use facility, but it will house GE’s  African centre of excellence for power generation and turbine repair.

Creating a healthy nation

In 2012, GE Healthcare signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Nigerian Ministry of Health and under the MOU, made a commitment to supporting the development of diagnostic and specialist hospitals, primary and rural care and capacity building with regards to education.

On the  right track

On the rail front, in the last seven years, GE has supplied the Nigeria Rail Corporation with 25 locomotives and is researching other ways to support the federal government in its revitalisation of the rail industry.

From a human resources perspective, GE believes in attracting, developing and retaining critical talent for GE Nigeria. The company has invested in accelerator programmes as well as other employee development programmes to ensure a healthy pipeline of Nigerians are ready for roles whenever they become vacant.

Somalia intends to resume printing banknotes this year for the first time since the government collapsed in 1991.

The governor of Somalia’s central bank, Bashir Issa Ali, told VOA in an exclusive interview Saturday that all technical preparations are complete, and his government is confident it can assemble a financial aid package within three months to fund the printing program.

Further work would take another four months.

Asked if Somalia will print and distribute banknotes during 2017, Ali answered: “Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely!” He pledged the new currency would include “good, reliable security features.”

Pre-1991 banknotes have disappeared from Somali markets, replaced by either Western currencies, including dollars, or privately printed notes, most of which are worthless fakes.

Financial reforms to take hold soon

Ali said international institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as the U.S. Treasury, have been helping Somalia reform its financial sector and train central bank staff.

“We have prepared all the issues and all the basic groundwork, and put in place the technical requirements,” he told VOA.

Outgoing Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud met a key demand of the international community last year by signing into law parliament-approved legislation to outlaw money laundering and “financial terrorism.”

The Somali government needs $60 million to be able to begin printing banknotes. Ali said he expects to obtain pledges for that sum at an international donors’ conference for Somalia in London in May.

“We expect the international community to assist us with that issue,” the bank governor said.

Private banks, ‘mobile money’

Hardship and the scarcity of trustworthy currency has created opportunities for some innovative strategies in the private sector, Ali said, and Somalia has made some progress in establishing private banks and mobile money systems.

Many transactions in Somalia now take place using “electronic mobile money,” Ali added.

Somali shillings account for a small portion of the payments system, he said.

“Most of it is done through dollars and electronic money, which is a great thing for … saving costs and effort and very convenient, also.”

Remittance companies that relay payments from Somalis working abroad operate in many parts of the country, Ali noted, but a large part of the nation does not have access to electronic funds or dollars, so there is an urgent need for a reliable national currency.

Once Somalia-printed banknotes begin to circulate, the central bank governor said, his staff will be able to regulate and control operations by private banks and remittance services.

The bank now has trained staff members to work on the financial and exchange systems, and training efforts are continuing. On February 12, he said, “more than 10 staffers are departing for training about counterfeiting and financial controls. They include staff from the bank, police and the national security agency.”

Monetary policy comes next

Since Somalia does not yet have its own currency, it also lacks a monetary policy, Ali said, but once the banknotes begin circulating, he looks forward to “the beginning of a new era” in the East African nation.

“Monetary policy always must come together in close collaboration with the fiscal policy of the government — taxation and revenue, the public budget and these kind of things,” Ali told VOA. “We don’t apply any monetary policy at the moment.”

Economists have recently predicted a slowdown for Somalia’s domestic economy, which largely relies on livestock exports. Ali said a “very disastrous” drought has killed thousands of farm animals.

“When you don’t have enough crops, it will contribute to food shortages,” he said. “When you have drought problems, you will not be able to export livestock.

“That will affect our foreign market and our exports,” he added, so Somalia’s foreign-exchange earnings will decline.

“When you get less foreign exchange, you will not be able to import what is required,” the bank governor said, “and when you import less, there will be less tax revenue for the government.”

In the short term, the peaceful election of a new Somali president appears to have helped the nation’s economy. The Somali shilling rose in value compared with the U.S. dollar over a two-day period; $1 brought 22,000 shillings before the election in Mogadishu, and by Saturday it was trading at 16,000 shillings.

“It’s a matter of expectations. There is a new government, new environment and new atmosphere,” Ali said, and that will have an effect on people’s opinions about security, the economy and the stability of the government.