Kenya’s High Court blocks 2 Finnish organisations from implementing EU funded project over “Impersonation Fraud”

Kenya’s High Court blocks 2 Finnish organisations from implementing EU funded project over “Impersonation Fraud”

Somalia’s national journalists’ union (NUSOJ) won a ruling against two Finland-based organisations for funding an impostor in the name of the trade union.

Yesterday, NUSOJ announced that it won an initial court ruling against Finn Church Aid (FCA) and Finnish foundation for media development (VIKES). The preliminary injunction stems from a complaint filed in August 2018 by NUSOJ against VIKES and FCA for using the name of the union “illegally” to solicit donor funding from well-meaning donors like the European Union and Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and falsely claiming that Mr. Mohamed Ibrahim Nur (Moalimuu) is an official representative of NUSOJ in a bid to “defraud EU funded program”.

High Court proscribed VIKES and FCA to give any funding to Mohamed Ibrahim Nur Moalimuu in the name of the complaining journalists’ union, and further restrained the two Finnish NGOs to recognise Mohamed Ibrahim as an official or representative of NUSOJ.

According to the legal complaint, VIKES applied funding from the Kenya-based EU Delegation to Somalia while untruly claiming to have NUSOJ as a local implementing partner.  In December last year, EU Delegation to Somalia awarded VIKES a grant worth EUROS 350000 with NUSOJ as “co-beneficiary” for the realization of a project that totally costs EUROS 500000.

Under this EU grant VIKES is required to look for co-financing for remaining portion of the project budget and FCA apparently agreed to make co-financing of some or balance of EURO 150000, as said in court papers. Lawyers argued that some of the funds are obtained from Finland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“We have repetitively appealed to EU delegation to Somalia to discontinue this impersonation fraud, especially when trickster is colluding a Finnish NGO to solicit EU funds in our trade union name” said President of Supreme Council of NUSOJ, Abdi Adan Guled.

Guled says “we have been telling people (EU officials for Somalia) to stop this fraud but it seemed that they preferred to look the other side and overlook this evident fraud”. The union had no other option but to move to court to deal with the impostor and his backers, he avers.

A European diplomat familiar with the case who insisted he not be identified by name because of the sensitivity of the matter: “To the extent I know this is the first EU financed project in Somalia that landed in court, facing all sort of maladministration and fraud allegations. And frankly reading court papers the Delegation chose not to offend some officials in Somali government who are against the union rather than looking into legal, political and human rights implications ……..of course, the EU is not part of the legal action but anyone who reads the file could find out their funding is in polemic, the contract they issued is the strongest evidence before the court and their name is cited several times for all sort of reasons.”

The case comes up as the European Parliament strongly condemned last July the massive and systematic human rights violations against NUSOJ members particularly its Secretary General Omar Faruk Osman, following decision of the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) which characterized Somali government guilt-ridden for grave human rights violations and abuses against the union.

“This is really very interesting case because most of the time Somalis are easily accused of alleged corruption including fraud, even without evidence. But now it is the other way round, where Somalis are accusing Finnish organisations for fraud and demanding such act to face full force of the law. People should be careful to misjudge Somalis,” said a civil society leader in Somalia who fears, if named, funding will be cut from his organisation.

Attorneys representing NUSOJ insinuated that many more surprises will be heard in the coming days including breach of EU regulations and criminal penalty for Mohamed Ibrahim Nur (Moalimuu) for violating court orders.