Pres­i­dent Far­majo an­nounced on Thurs­day morn­ing that he has ap­pointed Has­san Ali Khaire as So­ma­li­a’s Prime Min­is­ter.

Mr. Khaire lived in Nor­way in from 1989 and is a dual So­mali-Nor­we­gian cit­i­zen. He is an aid worker who spent over a decade work­ing with the Nor­we­gian Refugee Coun­cil (NRC) work­ing his way up to be the re­gional di­rec­tor for the Horn of Africa area.

He also has busi­ness in­ter­ests in So­ma­lia, he was the di­rec­tor of Soma Oil and Gas. The com­pany made head­lines in 2016 for be­ing at the cen­tre of in­ves­ti­ga­tions by the UN So­ma­lia and Er­itrea Mon­i­tor­ing Group (SEMG) and the UK, a charge both he and the com­pany vig­or­ously fought- and won.

Has­san Ali Khaire was born in 1967 in So­ma­lia to a fam­ily from the Mu­ru­sade tribe, a branch of the larger Hawiye tribe. He grad­u­ated from pri­mary and sec­ondary school in Mo­gadishu. At the on­set of the civil war, Khaire moved to Nor­way where he en­rolled at the Uni­ver­sity of Oslo in 1994. While in uni­ver­sity, Khaire was ac­tive in the So­mali Stu­dents As­so­ci­a­tion, ac­cord­ing to a friend.

Af­ter grad­u­at­ing in 1998 with a de­gree in po­lit­i­cal sci­ence and mi­nor in so­ci­ol­ogy, Has­san Ali Khaire went on to the Uni­ver­sity of Ed­in­burgh where he com­pleted his MBA in 2001.

Af­ter grad­u­a­tion, he moved back to Oslo where he be­gan work­ing with the NRC at their head­quar­ters.

Khaire briefly left the NGO for a few years to pur­sue busi­ness en­deav­ors but in 2006 he re­turned to the NRC as an area man­ager. He re­mained at the NRC for the next 9 years as he worked his way up to County Di­rec­tor and even­tu­ally the Re­gional Di­rec­tor for the Horn of Africa.

Has­san Khaire (left) met with Queen Sonja of Nor­way when she vis­ited Dadaab dur­ing a telethon in 2010. Chair was then the County Di­rec­tor for the NRC. PHOTO: ER­LEND AAS / SCAN­PIX

Af­ter nearly a decade in the NGO field, Khaire moved on to the pub­lic sec­tor join­ing Soma Oil. Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny’s web­site, Has­san Khaire has been with the coun­try since its in­cep­tion in 2013.

Both Has­san and Soma Oil faced se­ri­ous charges by var­i­ous groups. Has­san Khaire was ac­cused of hav­ing links to ex­trem­ist groups while Soma Oil and it’s chair­man Michael Howard faced cor­rup­tion in­ves­ti­ga­tions by UK’s Se­ri­ous Fraud Of­fice (SFO). They all main­tained their in­no­cence from the be­gin­ning and were even­tu­ally cleared by their ac­cusers af­ter rig­or­ous scrutiny.

A dis­patch from the SEMG pan­el’s co­or­di­na­tor to the Se­cu­rity Coun­cil last year af­firmed that he was no longer un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

“The SEMG has in­ves­ti­gated links be­tween Mr. Has­san Khaire and ex­trem­ist groups,” it states. “I wish to con­firm that the SEMG has not found cred­i­ble ev­i­dence of such links and that, in the ab­sence of any new in­for­ma­tion re­ceived by the SEMG clearly demon­strat­ing such links, we now con­sider this line of in­quiry to have reached a con­clu­sion.”

Sim­i­lar­ily, the SFO ended its in­ves­ti­ga­tion of Soma Oil af­ter a 17-month probe into the com­pa­ny’s in­ner work­ings.

An SFO spokesman said: “The SFO has con­cluded, based on the in­for­ma­tion and ma­te­r­ial we have ob­tained, that there is in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to pro­vide a re­al­is­tic prospect of con­vic­tion.

Has­san Ali Khaire speaks flu­ent So­mali, Nor­we­gian and Eng­lish. He has been de­scribed by those who know him as calm and very bright. The fa­ther of three is an ac­com­plished tech­no­crat who led an in­ter­na­tional NGO. His ex­pe­ri­ence as re­gional di­rec­tor for one of the most drought-stricken re­gions in the world will be key for So­ma­lia as the loom­ing famine is of im­me­di­ate con­cern.

Al­though Has­san Ali Khaire has never held pub­lic of­fice, over the course of his ca­reer he has worked with a range of high-level ex­ec­u­tives and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in var­i­ous ca­pac­i­ties. His deep rolodex is ru­moured to have names of am­bas­sadors, lead­ers of in­dus­try and promi­nent busi­ness­men in the re­gion.

The Prime Min­is­ter is ex­pected to im­me­di­ately start field­ing can­di­dates for ap­point­ments as he as­sem­bles his cab­i­net . In his first of­fi­cial ad­dress as a Prime Min­is­ter, Has­san Ali Khaire said that he would con­sult with Par­lia­ment and the Pres­i­dent in his de­ci­sion.

“I will form an in­clu­sive gov­ern­ment which meets the ex­pec­ta­tions and as­pi­ra­tions of So­ma­lis. I will also con­sult widely with Par­lia­ment and the Pres­i­dent,” said Khayre.