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Somalia gov’t intends to create independent telecoms regulator

Few nations lack a dedicated telecommunications regulator. These days, most have an independent regulator, some have a state-controlled regulator, and a couple only have a ministry that more-or-less covers regulatory duties. Not surprisingly, Somalia is one of the few African nations that lacks a regulator. (For reference, Libya, Seychelles, and Western Sahara are the others.)

Although Somalia’s Ministry of Posts & Communications oversees all telecoms operations, the government is scattered and ineffective (the ministry website hasn’t been updated since 2009).

However, we were shocked to read how Somali telecommunications stakeholders recently hammered out a draft communications law that will establish a legal framework for Somalia’s nascent telecoms industry. Ministry of Posts & Communications representatives were even present to discuss the main goal of the workshop: to establish a well-defined independent regulator by the end of the year. The hope is that the regulator, to be designed as the Somali Communications Commission, will promote investment, encourage fair competition, and diligently monitor prices for services.

Hopefully the law can pass relatively quickly, but not so hastily that it lacks substance. A lot is riding on the Communications Act. As the Minister of Information, Posts, and Telecommunications points out, the act will be “a key step in the process of strengthening the rule of Law in Somalia”. The banner for the event even highlighted the ability of ICT to bring peace.

Banner for the 13-14 Feb session in Mogadishu {Horn of Africa News}

Of course, the question remains whether the SCC, once created, will enforce (or be able to physically enforce) the telecoms law.

February 23, 2012/by actualize

Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Tweets update on Kenya-led anti-Al-Shabaab operations

Today, anyone with a Twitter account can receive updates on Kenyan military operations in Somalia aimed at reducing the threat posed by the Al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group: Al-Shabaab.

According to the Washington Post, Kenya sent troops into Somalia earlier in October in response to a series of cross-border kidnappings and grenade blasts in its capital Nairobi alleged to have been carried out by the Somali Islamist group, which controls most of southern Somalia.

Major Emmanuel Chirchir, Kenya’s military spokesman, offers updates, via Twitter, on military operations targeting Al-Shabaab. Twitter users can also ask questions, send their message of support to Kenyan troops, and offer feedback on events on the ground, via the #operationlindanchi hashtag.

“The strategy remains to reduce Al-Shabaab effectiveness and restore the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) authority,” Maj Chirchir said on his official Twitter account.

Kenyan Defense Forces (KDF) “engaged Al-Shabaab in their camp in the Busar area, exchanged fire and 12 Al Shabaab players [were] killed”, he added.

Earlier in the month, the KDF sank a boat killing 18 Al-Shabaab fighters and footage of the operation is available on YouTube.

“The boat was challenged to stop for identification but continued to approach the Kenya Navy at high speed -fired at”, Maj. Chirchir tweeted.

Maj. Chirchir has also used Twitter to ask people with relatives and friends of civilians located in Al-Shabaab controlled towns of to warn them of imminent KDF attacks on the militant group. Since Al-Shabaab has resorted to using donkeys to transport their weapons, Maj. Chirchir warned that any large concentration and movement of loaded donkeys will be considered as Al-Shabaab activity.

Decades of civil conflict allows war lords, pirate gangs, and militant groups to control parts of the country and challenge the authority of the internationally-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Kenyan troops add to Ugandan and Burundian contingencies already present. With the abduction of aid workers, killings of civilians in Uganda and Kenya, Al-Shabab is fast becoming a regional security issue.

January 4, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Shah: Cell Phones Could Provide Famine Relief

This article by Andrew Quinn originally appeared on Reuters.com.

A Somali resident purchases a cell-phone handset at a shopping centre in Mogadishu, November 4, 2009. Credit: Reuters/Feisal Oma

Cell phones may bring relief to famine victims in parts of Somalia controlled by al Shabaab insurgents as donors seek new ways to circumvent the hard-line militants, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday.

Rajiv Shah, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, said that despite al Shabaab’s ban on foreign aid in regions they control, progress was being made to reach about 2.7 million people desperately in need of help.

“It is difficult to provide large-scale commodity support. Food convoys have been attacked, so we’re trying a number of more innovative approaches,” Shah told Reuters on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Cell phone networks and the traditional “hawala” money transfer system used in many Islamic societies are two such routes, Shah said, while aid groups from Gulf Arab countries and elsewhere were also making inroads.

“We’re trying cash distributions through the hawala system and through mobile phones and then concomitantly flooding border markets with food so that traders can then make the connections,” Shah said.

Al Shabaab, a hard-line Islamist group linked to al Qaeda which controls most of the southern part of Somalia, banned food aid last year and kicked many groups out, saying aid creates dependency.

Some 3.7 million Somalis are at risk of starvation in the worst drought in decades, including some 2 million in rebel-held regions were most major aid agencies cannot reach.

Some local agencies are allowed to deliver aid to these areas, but this is not enough for all those who need it.

The rest of Somalia is expected to slide into famine by the end of the year as the drought gripping the Horn of Africa affects more than 13 million people.

Shah said U.S. efforts to improve agricultural techniques and technology in the region, coupled with economic support programs to make local communities more resilient, had helped to prevent the famine from broadening into a wider crisis as it did 1984-85 and again in 1998-2000.

But he said the situation remained critical, and new strategies aimed at enabling people to secure food supplies close to home were aimed at forestalling a broader flood of refugees to already overburdened camps.

“People leaving their communities going on these treks where they almost certainly will be assaulted, robbed, often raped,” Shah said. “The risks of participating in humanitarian action in the place they are is probably considerably lower.”

EXEMPTIONS NOT ENOUGH

The United States in August said it would not invoke anti-terror laws to prosecute nongovernmental groups working in southern Somalia if some aid falls into the hands of al-Shabaab, which is on the official U.S. terror blacklist.

But Shah said the exemptions had had little effect as most foreign aid organizations continued to have almost no safe access to al Shabaab-controlled regions.

The United States has contributed about $600 million to famine relief efforts in the Horn of Africa, more than half the total global response.

But Shah said he was worried that future efforts could be hobbled as U.S. lawmakers try to find a further $1.2-$1.5 trillion in budget cuts to trim the huge U.S. federal deficit.

“I am extraordinarily worried because that would be very counterproductive,” he said, saying a further destabilization of Somalia and strengthening of al-Shabaab could have direct security consequences for the United States.

September 21, 2011/by actualize

Connectivity, Legal & Regulatory, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Fiber Connections Between Kenya and its Neighbors

Last week I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Bitange Ndemo, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of ICT in Kenya. He explained how Kenya is very close to being linked to all of its neighbors, and how the national backhaul system is fully operational. In a country with such massive economic and social disparity, I am hopeful that Ndemo’s efforts to bring ICT services to all of Kenya will serve as a catalyst for stability and equality of opportunity.

To where are Kenya’s cables extending?

Kenya has the most extensive backhaul terrestrial system, and they are reaching out to adjacent countries. According to Ndemo, Kenya has three cables into Tanzania, as well as three cables into Uganda. Some of these cables make up part of the East African Backbone system, which also includes Rwanda and Burundi, and cables from Kenya to those nations are still under construction. Laying the connecting cables has been more difficult for Burundi, since this is a new experience for them and they have lower capacity in this space.

Photo: BBC News

Ndemo also confirmed that there are current discussions and plans to bring fiber to South Sudan, though no construction is currently underway. There is only 60 kilometers between Kenyan cables already laid and the South Sudan border.

The possibility of connecting Somalia, however, is contingent on the political situation. Though Kenya has a microwave only 2 kilometers from the border of Somalia in the state of Mandera, they will not bring the connection across without complete assurance that there will not be privacy infringements. Both of these nations are quite close to being a part of the East African Backbone system.

August 17, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

USAID Famine Early Warning System Helps Trigger Response

Photo Credit: Abdi Warsameh, AP

Farhiya Abdulkadir, 5, from southern Somalia, suffers from malnutrition and lies on a bed at Banadir hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia. Her growth is stunted, her belly engorged, and the muscular tissues keeping her organs functioning are slowly wearing away—the five-year-old is deteriorating to death.

Farhiya is dying from famine, starvation, and malnutrition; but a packet of the peanut buttery Plumpy’nut could help bring her back to life.

The U.N. declared a famine late last month in parts of southern Somalia where tens of thousands of people, mostly children, have died, in what aid officials call the worst humanitarian crisis in the troubled country in over two decades.

Despite dire conditions, where one-third of the population of Somalia is facing starvation, militant Islamist group al-Shabaab has been deflecting international aid where help is needed the most.

A couple weeks ago, Edward Carr who works in famine response for USAID on the ground in the Horn of Africa, observed that despite similar drought conditions in Kenya and Ethiopia, the state of Southern Somalia is critical, “we cannot get into these areas with our aid…famine stops at the Somali border”.

How does he know, then, exactly where aid is needed, how much is needed, and will be needed in the upcoming months?

The USAID-supported Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) is a system helps to identify timely information on the most affected areas, urging the global humanitarian community to move quickly and scale up their relief efforts on evolving food security issues.

FEWS NET summarizes the causes for the famine as:

The total failure of the October-December Deyr rains (secondary season) and the poor performance of the April-June Gu rains (primary season) have resulted in crop failure, reduced labor demand, poor livestock body conditions, and excess animal mortality.

FEWS NET estimates that a total of 3.2 million people require immediate, lifesaving humanitarian assistance, including 2.8 million people in southern Somalia—highlighted areas are the Bakool agropastoral livelihood zones, and all areas of Lower Shabelle.

So what is the next step?

FEWS NET identifies these issues, and using a group of communications and decision support tools, recommending decision makers to act quickly in order to mitigate food insecurity in Southern Somalia. These tools include briefings and support for contingency and response planning efforts.

Currently, FEWS NET has helped organizations, such as the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO), the Red Cross, and U.N. groups, such as the World Food Program (WFP), who are on the ground delivering aid, obtain timely information on what is needed and where.

Last Wednesday, WFP deployed a plane from Kenya with 10 tons of food—one of the many airlifts of the nutritional packets that will take place in the upcoming months.

The FEWS NET Food Security Outlook in the Horn of Africa for August-September 2011 predicts that in these upcoming months, the famine will inevitably spread and last until at least December.

Hopefully, the FEWS NET is the type of system that will help automate an humanitarian response from the international community—helping internally displaced children like Farhiya suffering from malnutrition, eat something before their condition deteriorates.

August 9, 2011/by actualize

Connectivity, Legal & Regulatory, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

How to Stop the Next Famine in Somalia? Internet Infrastructure

I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago about a series of ways that Somalia could get broadband Internet connectivity. The article was reposted in several British, Somali and Kenyan online newspapers and was even criticized by a group of IT professionals in Somaliland. Given the hunger crisis outbreak in the Horn of Africa since then, I want to revisit the issue of connectivity in Somalia. It appears that mobile and Internet access is being recognized as a crucial need for humanitarian agencies.

Photo: AP

Information and communication technology (ICT) services during humanitarian crisis are much improved from a few years ago. Ushahidi and Frontline SMS have demonstrated the power of text services. Mobile money by MercyCorps in Haiti provided some organized method of food distribution and sustained economic activity. The government of Luxembourg recently partnered with the World Food Programme to test a connectivity kit to restore voice and text communications when power systems are wiped out during natural disasters. The list could go on.

A famine is different than other disasters, however. It does not affect ICT infrastructure directly as a hurricane or tsunami would. ICTs, then, can play a key role in organizing humanitarian relief efforts during a famine or crisis of any sort. In addition, ICTs can prevent famines because of the increased communication they can provide.

Remember economist Amartya Sen’s claim that a famine has never occurred in a working democracy? Famines are not so much a result of a lack of food, but rather a lack of effective distribution and communication. Democracies, with all their checks and balances of power, give enough voice to the people so that food is delivered when needed.

I argue that the amount of communication inherent in a democracy is the real key to the distribution and production of food that stops a famine. Public communication, not necessarily democracy, stops famines. In fact, what Sen defines as a “working” democracy, is simply a democracy where people of all social classes have a voice. A “working” democracy, then, is itself founded on the principles of the equality of communication.

It isn’t social media that will end the famine, but it is a process and steady cycle of communication between social groups. The more communication, the less social injustice—famine included. This type of communication can better occur with significant ICT infrastructure, which allows people in different locations to still communicate and share ideas.

One of the better ways to increase communication in a nation is mobile and Internet services along with IT infrastructure. I spoke with Bitange Ndemo, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of ICTs and a Director of the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), this week about possible broadband cable connections with Somalia. He was optimistic and outlined some possibilities, contingent on the Somali political environment. Ndemo explained that Kenya has broadband cables and a microwave just 2 km from the border with Somalia in Mandera. Both Kenyan and Somali telecoms have approached CCK, hoping to make a connection into Somalia. However, Kenya has declined as of now, for security risks. If they route the cable into Somalia then they risk privacy concerns and people cutting the cables. Given the political instability in Somalia right now, Kenya has yet to route the cable. Somalia remains unconnected to the rest of the East African Backhaul System, and still remains without any lighted fiber-optic cables, greatly limiting Internet usage and global communication.

It may seem strange for a government to invest in expensive broadband cables when its citizens are struggling to find enough food, but perhaps such an investment would end up ending its struggles with famine. Or, instead of the Somali government investing in IT infrastructure, they could grant easier regulations to private telecoms, and let them route and light cables throughout the nation. This would leave the government with less control over the telecommunications industry, but would save any financial costs.

Ultimately, though, the manner in which Somalia increases public communication is not as important as making sure that something is done to increase IT infrastructure throughout the nation. At the end of the day, food security concerns are tied to communication capabilities, and mobile and Internet infrastructure can play a significant role in decreasing the probability of famine.

August 9, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Food Security, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Somali at Dadaab Camp text UN aid tip…

Credit: WFP/Judith Schuler

Responding to the food security needs of those affected by famine in the Horn of Africa is an enormous logistical challenge…

The most severe drought in a half a decade has made the already unstable region, particularly Somalia, an even more food insecure place. The United Nations is on the cusp of declaring a full-blown famine in Somalia, having deemed nearly a third of the country’s regions (5 of 18) to be experiencing a famine, which means more than 30% of people in those areas are subject to malnutrition—a quarter of all Somalis can relate. Upwards of 12 million people are caught in this perilous situation that also found toeholds in sections of Dijibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya.

The food crisis (and all out famine in parts) is made worse by drought, but high fuel and food prices, and longstanding conflict in the region are primary causes. This makes for an especially complex emergency, where getting the right kinds of aid to people when and where they need it most, logistics, requires smart tools and strategies. This gives credence to the rapid shift in how development aid is being managed and deployed, to a point where technology becomes a vital tool in emergence response.

The ongoing crisis in the Horn of Africa underscores this. The last issue of The Economist carried an article with an insightful lead that quotes a text message from a Somali affected by famine. The sender declared ‘“MY NAME is Mohammed Sokor, writing to you from Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab. Dear Sir, there is an alarming issue here. People are given too few kilograms of food. You must help.” Mr. Sokor texted his appeal to two United Nations officials, in London and Nairobi, after finding their numbers on the internet while surfing at a café at the north Kenyan camp.

As many have observed, Mr. Sakor’s strategic use of a near ubiquitous ICT, his mobile-phone, signals the rapidly transforming relationship between the senders and receivers of aid. It is clear that greater accountability and agility will become a demand from the bottom-up. Increasingly, aid recipients will influence the kinds of aid they receive, where and how they get it. “In the humanitarian operation of the future,” says Save the Children’s Mr Porter, “beneficiaries of emergency aid will use technology to tell us what they need—cash, food, or education—find out from us what to expect, and track its arrival, just as we can track an order from Amazon.com now.”

But, the relationship between food security and logistics supersedes complex humanitarian scenarios. As I contend in a previous blog, food insecurity is caused by a wide range of factors, including declining yields, inadequate investment in research and infrastructure, and increased water scarcity, but it is also brought about by immense waste. Logistical woes is a key cause for much of this waste. For instance, more than a third of crops reaped never gets to market in edible fashion because of poor value chain management and practices.

Long term development of the agricultural systems in the region must focus on using logistics technology to improve transportation and warehousing of produce. It’s crucial that we reduce food waste in the drive to improve food security.

August 9, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Humanitarian Assistance, Infectious Diseases, Mobile, Nutrition, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

To UNICEF and WHO: Don’t forget to monitor your vaccines

Children and women waiting to get diagnosed in clinic. Photo Credit: WHO

In the wake of the drought and famine being experienced in the Horn of Africa, multiple vaccination campaigns have been launched in the region. UNICEF, WHO and Kenya’s Ministry of Health (MOH) are launching a campaign for the children situated in the Dadaab refugee camp in Northern Kenya, which is already triple the amount beyond its refugee capacity. UNICEF is also launching a solo campaign for children in the Horn of Africa, with a particular focus on Somalia.

The UNICEF and WHO-backed campaign in Dadaab will target 202,665 children under five years of age, with measles and polio vaccines, together with Vitamin A and de-worming tablets. The campaign is part of a regional push to ensure all children in drought affected areas are vaccinated against a killer disease like measles which can be deadly for malnourished children, and be protected from polio.

The solo UNICEF campaign for the rest of the Horn of Africa includes a strategy to vaccinate every child in Somalia under the age of 15 against measles which totals over 2.5 million children.

“This is a child survival crisis,” said Elhadj As Sy, UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa. “Children don’t die just because they don’t have enough food. In various stages of malnutrition, they are more prone to sickness and disease. As big a challenge as the rates of malnutrition pose, the danger for children extends even further.”

“Malnutrition can weaken a child’s immune system, increasing their susceptibility to infectious diseases like measles and polio,” says Ibrahim Conteh, UNICEF Dadaab Emergency Coordinator. “We are acting now because these diseases can spread very quickly in overcrowded conditions like we have now in the camps.”

Measles is a highly contagious disease which can flourish in unsanitary and overcrowded environments like refugee camps. Measles reduces a child’s resistance to illness and makes them more likely to die when they are malnourished and suffering from other diseases.

Launching a vaccination campaign in the Horn of Africa is no simple task, even without a drought crisis to worry about. The region experiences atrocious coverage rates as evidenced by Southern Somalia where vaccination coverage is just 26%, one of the lowest in the world.

This suggests that there may be issues with the cold chain transportation of vaccines in the region. In the developing world, transporting vaccinations is complicated as high temperatures, scarce resources, unreliable electricity, and long distances between health care facilities can all break the chain.

Mobile vaccine refrigerator. Photo Credit: True Energy

This means that as UNICEF, WHO and the Kenyan MOH roll out of their campaigns, they must take extra precautions to make sure vaccine spoilage is minimized as much as possible. So many children’s lives depend on the vaccines being functional and on time.

Most, if not all of the vaccines being distributed in the campaigns will be transported using mobile vaccine refrigerators. There are mobile refrigerators currently in use all over the developing world that utilize innovative vaccine monitoring systems.

SmartConnect box

True Energy, a company highlighted in the past supplies a grid powered or solar powered refrigerator that offers vial vaccine monitoring to monitor the temperature of the vaccines along the cold chain. They also include a SmartConnect SMS monitoring system that sends out an SMS to the recipient alerting them of temperature changes along the cold chain for instantaneous monitoring.

PATH is one organization that has purchased these vaccine refrigerators with the SmartConnect capability. UNICEF has also commissioned these refrigerators from True Energy and is shipping the refrigerators for use in over 30 countries. Furthermore, the True Energy refrigerators meet WHO cold chain requirements.

Therefore, there should be no excuse for inadequate monitoring of vaccines amidst the vaccination campaigns. The technologies exist to ensure cold chain efficiency. Moreover, UNICEF and WHO have both recently dabbled with these existing technologies.

With reports that the drought in the Horn of Africa has not yet reached its peak, the vaccination efforts must be successful or millions of children may suffer the consequences.

August 8, 2011/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

How Broadband Will Get To Somalia Before You Know It

Child participates in USAID's Interactive Radio Instruction education program, the only possible ICT project currently in Somalia.

Last week, I interviewed Mohamed Ahmed Jama, CEO of Dalkom Somalia and board member of Frontier Optical Networks Ltd (FON) in Kenya. Mr. Jama described four potential Broadband cables that could be a part of a terrestrial backbone throughout East Africa, including in Somalia. A fifth was announced yesterday in Somaliland.

Though all three of these proposed links are just that—proposals—they are indicative of the rapid growth of Broadband connectivity in the region. Most East African governments are actively engaged in rolling out backbone terrestrial networks, while four years ago the World Bank called East African connectivity the world’s only “missing link.” South Sudan is working with the CTO to develop an ICT strategic plan, Burundi recently received funding from the World Bank, and Uganda has also invested as well. And private companies are facilitating the expansion of Broadband cables as well; they are working with the national governments to lay the cables and to fund the projects. The East African Backhaul System, recently announced as a combined $400 million partnership between Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo governments and a variety of private telecoms. The unique partnerships between the public and private sector make the ICT space in East Africa distinct from other regions.

Potential backbone networks in Somalia, Ethiopia, and South Sudan are listed here and can be seen on the following map (forgive the rough estimations, I did not draw this exact):

1. Somalia’s Connection to EASSy Cables (blue line)

According to Mr. Jama, Dalkom Somalia has built two cable landing sites in Somalia from the EASSy submarine cable, one in Somaliland and the other in Mogadisho, Somalia. Unfortunately, the government of Somaliland revoked Dalkom’s license last year before the cable was completed (scheduled to be finished in October, 2010). The Somaliland government claimed that they had already signed an agreement with a local company, SomCable. However, no additional work has been carried out since last year, leaving construction at a stand still and the region unconnected. In Mogadisho, on the other hand, the landing cable lays ready to be used, but remains unconnected due to security issues at the site. To make matters more frustrating, Dalkom has funding, contracts awarded and the regulatory approval to extend the cables from the landing site inward, creating a national terrestrial backbone. Security issues in the area are the only contingency.

2. Mombasa—Nairobi—Moyale, Ethiopia Cable (green line)

The EASSy submarine cable has been extended inland previously from Mombasa to Nairobi. For the past year, discussions have been underway been the Kenyan and Ethiopian government on possibly constructing a terrestrial cable from Nairobi to Moyale, on the Ethiopian border. However, with FON’s assistance, the cable has been built, but is yet to be lighted. The only remaining holdup is to sign an agreement of understanding with the Ethiopia government, which has historically been reluctant to work with private sector ICT companies.

3. Somalia—Kenya Connection (black line)

According to Mr. Jama, there is 560 km remaining between fiber optic terrestrial backbone cables in Somalia and the state of Mandera in Northeastern Kenya. Mr. Jama proposes that the Kenyan government bring the fiber to the border, and then Dalkom Somalia would complete the Somali side. This connection would connect Somalia to the African backbone network. However, there has been intermittent violence on the Kenya-Somalia border in Mandera, with the most recent issue being a land mine blast that killed eleven Kenyan officers. The volatility of the border could potentially lead to another security standstill before lighting the fiber, like in Mogadisho. Dalkom and the governments, then, need to concern themselves not only with the technical issues and construction of the remaining fiber, but also on the political instability of the region.

4. Juba—Lokichogio Link (red line)

Southern Sudan and Kenya plan to construct a fiber optic cable link between the two nations as part of a larger project entitled “four-in-one.” The project includes the construction of a railway line from Lodwar-Lokichogio to Juba, road rehabilitation, an oil pipeline, and fiber optic cables. Currently, the governments need to conduct a feasibility test given the mountainous nature of the route, especially the Great Rift Valley. In all likelihood, the project will not be finished before 2015.

5. Djibouti—Somaliland SomCable (orange line)

SomCable, supported by the interim government in the territory of Somaliland, reportedly signed an agreement to buy the necessary buildings and licensing in Djibouti to route the EASSy cable into Berbera and throughout Somaliland. The President of SomCable, Mr. Mohammed Gueti, announced his recent acquisitions just yesterday. Mr. Gueti has strong ties with the president of Djibouti’s family, arguably giving his company an advantage over Dalkom Somalia at winning the contract. However, as Mr. Jama points out, construction has yet to begin on this cable line, possibly suggesting that the announcement is merely a political move by the government of Somaliland as Mr. Gueti does has any rights to extend the EASSY Cable. Neither purchases any capacity from the members of the Consortium.

July 14, 2011/by actualize

Tag Archive for: somalia

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