Media Statement Regarding Expected United Nations Somalia Sanctions Committee Report

NAIROBI, Kenya, March 12, 2010 - The New York Times carried a front-page story on March 9 saying that a
report is forthcoming from the UN Somalia Sanctions Committee alleging
large-scale diversion of the UN World Food Program (WFP) humanitarian aid
effort. An advance copy of the report was leaked to the Times by unknown
parties perhaps seeking to build external support for the report prior to its
official adoption by the UN Security Council. According to the Times, the
Sanctions Committee report contains accusations that DEEQA, as a principal
food-delivery contractor in the Somalia WFP, participated in the alleged
diversion of aid.

If such allegations directed toward DEEQA were ultimately to be published
by the UN, we would respond immediately to the Sanctions Committee and to
interested media. Were the contents of any report to reflect the
characterization of DEEQA's activities as presented in the Times, we would of
course respond that they were baseless and possibly fabricated. For now, we
wish to inform the several news outlets which have sent inquiries to our
company that, for the past three months, we have been in active dialogue with
the Sanctions Committee investigators, known as the Somalia Monitoring Group
(SMG), as well as with assigned UN legal staff, regarding their interest in
DEEQA.

Being aware that the relief effort in which we were a significant
participant was under scrutiny, and having had firsthand experience with past
iterations of the SMG that had, unfortunately, allowed flagrantly false and
damaging hearsay to obtain the UN imprimatur in their reports, we voluntarily
undertook to engage the investigators to ensure accuracy and fairness with
respect to their examination of DEEQA. Our attentiveness to the process was
intensified by the fact that leaks of official reports, much like the one to
the Times, had been occurring in a manner that appeared to be designed to
drive external opinion to accept a negative conclusion of the investigation
as foregone.

The process of engagement with the SMG was difficult and trying, even
with the assistance of the international legal counsel we retained in
Washington, DC as an extra measure of caution. Though the SMG's pursuits are
not officially intended to be guided by conventional rules of due process,
our experience showed the investigation to be, at least insofar as the
engagement of our company was concerned, extremely opaque, unpredictable, and
far from thorough. Investigators sometimes did not understand basic
operations of the WFP.

Despite our immediate, voluntary response to the SMG, it took nearly six
weeks for us to extract any precise statement of the allegations the
investigators had developed about DEEQA from third-party sources. Ironically,
we were informed that we were receiving "more formal treatment" because we
had brought lawyers into the equation. We learned that most information that
the SMG uses is apparently derived from second- and third-hand statements
from individuals living in a war-torn, chaotic environment, or at a remove in
the cafes or on the streets of Nairobi, rendering it virtually impossible to
test for reliability. We were surprised to learn that the SMG's formal
protocols and procedures permit — indeed, embrace — reliance on such
hearsay information.

Nonetheless, we persevered and through exhaustive effort were able to
comprehensively refute every allegation that the Monitoring Group placed
before us. We did so through official documentation, written rebuttals, and
oral arguments presented with the assistance of our U.S. attorneys. Now, with
the release of the Times story, we fear that our labors may have been in
vain. Indeed, the article leaves us deeply worried that this process may have
gone seriously awry, perhaps for reasons that neither concern us directly nor
are within our ability to fully grasp.

We are aware of the WFP's negative reaction to both the reported contents
of the SMG investigation and the unauthorized manner in which they were
publicized. We have also learned that other officials, both within the UN and
among a number of member governments, have expressed doubts about the
integrity of this process. In that vein, DEEQA welcomes enthusiastically any
independent UN or other third-party investigation of the Somalia WFP and will
fully cooperate with the expectation of definitively eliminating any concerns
about DEEQA. But for now, we feel compelled to bide our time and to ask
interested press to do the same while we clarify the situation with respect
to the anticipated Somalia Sanctions Committee report.

    Signed,
    Abdulkadir Nur
    CEO

About DEEQA

Founded in 1978, DEEQA is among the few companies that have operated in
Somalia throughout the period of the civil war. We specialize in construction
of roads, ports, airstrips, hospitals, irrigation systems and public
buildings, as well as water-well drilling. Our work force, which fluctuates
with projects, has reached as high as 10,000 people. DEEQA is the oldest and
most reliable partner supporting a range of international aid organizations
in Somalia. Food transport, including for the WFP, ADRA, ICRC, CARE and
UNICEF has been a principal activity of DEEQA for the past twenty years.

Mark D'Anastasio of Emerging Markets Communications, LLC, Washington, DC, +1-202 331-7751, info at emcommunicate.com, for DEEQA