By Judy Maina
NAIROBI – The theft of $530,000 from Somalia’s central bank reserves by a teller occurred with the connivance of some officials in the government, according to emerging revelations.
Muhyadin Mohamed Hassan, a long-time central bank teller who is on the run deposited fake Somali notes and took U.S. dollars with him, the bank’s governor Bashir Ise confirmed on Thursday.
However, sources in Somalia’s finance ministry told Alleastafrica news agency that the ‘systematic’ scam has been in the making for the past few months, with the teller acted with the coordination of unidentified senior officials in the UN-backed government.
Somali government spokesman declined commented when contacted by an Alleastafrica reporter Friday.
The whereabouts of Mr. Hassan who was involved in the systematic theft remains unknown.
The current government’s mandate expires next month and announced it’d hold a presidential election on October 30.
Despite multiple efforts to combat corruption, a recent report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia said that the systematic misappropriation, embezzlement and outright theft of public resources have essentially become a system of governance in Somalia.
Somali government had routinely denied the accusations, and labelled them as ‘unfounded’.
Write to Judy Maina at: judy.maina@alleastafrica.com
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