Military chief Gen. Gorod rebuffs graft reports against national army

Chief of Defense forces Gen. Abdiweli Gorod has dismissed accusations the military is steeped in corruption forcing the US to hold back its funding for the troops.

Gen. Gorod said he is not aware of graft practices within the military noting he is committed to ensuring accountability and transparency in the force. He added he was also still new in the post and did not know of such practices.

“We know they are cutting aid to us but we don’t know of any corruption or any initiative taken by them [US],” said Gen. Gorod. “We pledge such a thing will not occur and will never be. It is our plan to channel everything in a proper manner.”

The US defense department announced this past week it was cutting aid to the Somali National Army over concerns of graft. Citing field visits to various military camps in the country, Pentagon said it was dismayed to learn funds to the army were not properly utilized. In one instance, it notes less than a fifth of the soldiers listed by Somali commanders were present in one of the camps.

“The best-staffed base had 160 soldiers out of 550. Only 60 had weapons,” a statement to Somali government from Pentagon read.

“The SNA is a fragile force with extremely weak command and control,” the report said. “They are incapable of conducting effective operations or sustaining themselves.”

But Gen. Gorod said the Somali army will rely on existing resources to carry on. “We shall depend on ourselves since this army was employed by the Somali government and it will shoulder it. We don’t think problems will be there” said General Gorod

Prime Minister Hassan Khaire said Saturday however the decision to suspend the aid was based on evidence of graft in the military and that the cut was based on agreement with the US.

“We have done a study that made it possible to find out the challenges against rebuilding our national army, including diversion of soldiers’ salaries, lying about the list of the active and alive military personnel, and as a result, we have jointly decided to suspend the U.S. aid to parts of Somalia’s military for a few weeks until we improve and fix the errors,” Khaire said.

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