The Republican is a weekly English language
publication based in Hargeisa,Somaliland.
Issue 127, Sept.2, 2000
By our staff reporter
Abdiqassim Salad alias Ina Salad Boy, the man
who was hand-picked by Djibouti's Ismail Omer Gelleh to be
installed as President for the now defunct state of Somalia and
Ali Khalif Galaydh, Boy's choice to become Prime Minister, worked
together during the seventies and eighties in the Somali Ministry
of Industries, embezzling millions of dollars in foreign aid.
Salad Boy was his minister. The sugar factory project was
established with funds from oil rich Arab governments including
Kuwait and the UAE. Equipment for the factory were purchased from
a company called Copper Agriculture. It turned out later that
Abdiqassim Salad Boy and Ali Khalif Galaydh had swindled the sugar
factory project of over USD 25 million.
The equipment and all the other installations
erected at Mareeray happened to be second hand. Despite showing an
initial displeasure with the way that a substantial amount of the
project funds was used, the Arab funding agencies however
continued releasing more money to get the factory operational at
any cost before the end of 1977.
This schedule was however never met and more
millions ended up in the pockets of Ina Salad Boy and Ali Khalif
Galaydh. The president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sheikh
Zayid bin Sultan Al Nahyan got so disappointed that he ordered a
freeze on UAE donated funds. The action prompted dictator Barre to
fly to Abu Dhabi to beg Zayed for releasing the remaining
allocated money. The flow of earmarked funds resumed to the
delight of Salad and Galaydh who both, according to former sugar
industry hands, netted at least 25 million dollars for themselves
from the project funds. The sugar factory was partially
inaugurated in 1980.
In the early eighties, Ali Khalif
Galaydh, who married a Marehan lady by the name of Habiba Isaaq in
order to receive the blessings of the Marehan born dictator Barre,
became Somalia's new Minister of Industry. It had been widely
reported at the time that Galaydh who is from Somaliland's region
of Sool made at least 80 (eighty) million dollars in kick backs
and direct embezzlement of public funds. In 1983 he claimed of
having defected the regime of Siyad Barre and went to the United
States to seek asylum. Ever since Galaydh used to live in the US.
Since the down fall of Barre, Ali Khalif had been using his
handsome cash deposits in the US, the UAE and Djibouti to finance
a political come back. As a facade, Galaydh had established during
the last few years business ventures in Somaliland, Somalia and
Djibouti.
Salad
Boy served dictator Siyad during much of his 21 years reign in
the former Somalia. Because his father was killed by a Marehan
tribesman, Barre compensated him with a cabinet position for
life. It was normal to see during those days Ina Salad Boy
renamed to a ministerial post in every cabinet shake-up. In the
process, Salad accumulated a huge financial wealth estimated at
over 100 (one hundred) million dollars, according to former
officials of the Siyad Barre government. As Siyad Barre's last
Minister of Interior, Salad was noted for his advocacy of the
obliteration of the Isaak population of Somaliland. Over 100,000
(one hundred thousand) civilians perished in Somaliland as a
result of Siyad Barre's genocide campaign against people in the
north. Both Ina Salad Boy and Ali Khalif are friends of
Abdirahman Boore, a Djibouti business tycoon with connections
with the Corsican and Italian Mafia. It was Boore who had
introduced Galaydh and Salad to Ismail Omer Gelleh several years
before the Arta conference has been contemplated.