February 26, 2014 | Posted by admin

Former Somali deputy prime minister and minister for foreign affairs Fawzia Hajji Yussuf said she will seek legal advice on Reuter’s news agency for reporting false graft allegations against her.

According to Reuters news agency investigative story dated 14 February dubbed “Graft allegations test west ties to Somali President,” by Drazen Jorgic claimed that former Somali central bank governor Yusra Abrar resigned after pressurized by senior government officials on contracts and opening of false accounts.

In a press statement sent to news rooms today Mr. Fowzia said that the highlighted story by Reuters, implicating her in the graft was both poor reporting and a totally false accusation saying Reuters has not made a attempt whatsoever to contact her to obtain the facts on their story.

“According to Reuters, Ms. Abrar has claimed that I have pressured her to open an account in Dubai. However, the fact is that the account was in the process of being opened by the former Assistant Minister of Finance of Somalia and he wanted the new Governor of the Central Bank to co-sign with him.”She said.

Mrs. Fawzia said that the main purpose for opening the account was due to the lack of a SWIFT code for the Central Bank of Somalia to receive transactions from overseas at that time.

” Ms. Abrar was in fact asked by the Assistant Minister of Finance to co-sign with him the account, in order to involve the Central Bank in all transactions. The Assistant Finance Minister confirmed that he was waiting for Ms. Abrar for 4 days in Dubai to finalize the matter. My role was just to pass the message from the Assistant Finance Minister to Ms. Abrar, that he was waiting for her in Dubai to co-sign the aforementioned account.”She said.

Former Somali foreign affairs minister blames Reuters news agency for poor reporting and fabricating false corruption allegations and said she will seek legal advice on the way forward on the matter.

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