Tristan McConnellGlobal PostJuly 4, 2009HARGEISA, Somaliland
— What began as a way for exiled Somalis to
send money to relatives at home has become a company that almost
single-handedly keeps the entire war-torn country afloat.“Remittances
are a lifeline to Somalis,” said Abdirashid Duale,
chief executive of Dahabshiil, at his Hargeisa headquarters. “They are
the main income people here receive.”Dahabshiil, a
family-owned money transfer company, is a household
name among Somalis. It is also Somalia's economic linchpin connecting
the wealthy diaspora with the impoverished homebodies.In
Dahabshiil’s headquarters, the uneven staircases, woozily
slanting walls and off-kilter balustrades lend the office a
half-finished feel. Duale, a fast-talking and broadly smiling man who
lives
between London and Hargeisa, sweats in the heat despite the air
conditioning whirring in the background.The office has the relaxed charm of many a family-run African
business. Duale’s
father, Dahabshiil’s founder, shuffles by in his
sandals, a length of printed material wrapped around his waist and a
short traditional walking stick tucked under his arm as he makes his
way to
a private office on the roof where he sits cross-legged on the
floor in front of a computer.It is all a far cry from Western Union’s Colorado headquaters or
Moneygram’s in
Minnesota. But then Hargeisa is an unlikely place to
find a multi-million dollar financial services company.The heat is stultifying, the dusty streets filled with potholes,
battered cars and
ambling pedestrians. The tangled birds’ nests of
wires that cling to every telegraph pole are testament to the recent
boom in telephone connections. Informal stalls that sell imported goods
and
Ethiopian-grown khat, a popular plant chewed as a stimulant, line
the roads. Money changers sit behind bricks of local currency.The Dahabshiil name is ubiquitous: etched into concrete posts
that
mark crossroads, emblazoned on spare wheel covers on the back of 4x4s
and stuck on signboards outside shops and offices offering money
transfer services.The World Bank estimates that
remittances worth around $1 billion a
year reach Somalia from emigres in the U.S., Europe and the Gulf
states. And industry experts reckon that Dahabshiil may handle around
two-thirds of that and as
much of half of it may reach the
semi-autonomous region of Somaliland. Continue reading at Global Post Learn more about this reporting project.Bakc to top
A Somali man, injured during clashes between Islamists and government forces, is treated at a hospital in Mogadishu, July 4, 2009. In the third day of heavy fighting in the north ...
