Donor-backed body questions Somali state contract awards | Top News | Reuters

Donor-backed body questions Somali state contract awards | Top News | Reuters

Most of the major contracts signed by Somalia's government in the past two years were not tendered competitively and should be renegotiated or scrapped, according to a confidential report by a donor-backed committee that reviewed the deals.
Somalia has awarded foreign firms management contracts ranging from port and airport operations to fishing rights, but donors have voiced frustration at the handling of public funds, prompting the creation of a committee to analyse the deals.
The Finance Governance Committee (FGC) report, dated January 2015 and obtained by Reuters, said the FGC had completed a review of nine of the 11 contracts. "None of the 11 contracts were tendered competitively, nor do they respond to any pre-defined terms of reference or scope of services," the FGC report said. The FGC, set up after donors criticised the government over management of public funds, has six members, three picked by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank and three chosen by the government.It said advice offered to the government in "confidential assessments ranges from recommending the federal government negotiate an improvement in terms, to proposing the cancellation of those contracts that are of dubious benefit to the country."Somalia is recovering from more than two decades of war and relies on Western and other donor funding to keep it afloat. Its security also depends heavily on a 22,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force fighting Islamist militant group al Shabaab.While the FGC findings will not surprise Western donors who acknowledge Somalia lacks institutional capacity to engage in complex contract negotiations, it will reinforce concerns about poor transparency and worries that vested interests trump national priorities in President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's government.