The Auditor General, Sunday, questioned the validity of the Somaliland House of Representatives’ Public Accounts Committee, as read out by its Chairman, Nassir Ali Shire, who has been, since then, suspended from the Chairmanship of the Committee for similar reasons.
The Auditor General, Ahmed Yussuf Dirir, pointed out that the 2016 government budget was being discussed at the time PAC submitted its report.
The AG stated that the 2016 budget was signed, sealed and certified by his predecessor, Mohamoud Dheere, intimating that neither he nor anybody else had reasonable grounds to pull it apart in 2018.
“PAC went to the media without submitting anything to us or consulting the AG office. We do not work by ear. We have our own ways and rules for investigation, and PAC’s does not comply with proper, set procedures as it went about it the wrong way, using incorrect channels and methods,” he said.
“PAC is not an executive arm of the law. Even if it finds any misappropriation, it should submit it to the Auditor General’s office which undertakes a further investigation. It is our office that either submits findings to the Attorney General for prosecution if it corroborates PAC views or return it to the Committee stating how and where it went wrong,” the AG said.
Talking to STAR TV, the AG revealed that the office was busy on following up on about 8 threads of investigation it had initiated, itself, and had no over-riding reasons to abandon them and start on allegations fired off by people or agencies not mandated to do so by law.
The Auditor General, however, missed to point out that the then PAC Chairman, Nassir Ali Shire, further revealed his partiality and ineptitude in report he submitted to floor by presenting 2017 events in a 2016 budget discussion thus unforgivably misleading other HoR members to promote own agenda – one of the factors that precipitated his suspension on Saturday.
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The House Speaker and a number of other MPs, including members of PAC, itself, have since then offered apologies to individuals and organizations subjectively targeted by PAC Chairman, MP Nassir Ali Shire. Mr. Shire threw unfounded allegations left and right leading to a number of people and organizations in an ignominious attempt to discredit them who, since then, filed file-suits against him in court.
