Hassan Ali Khayre

After nearly a decade in the NGO field, Khaire moved on to the public sector joining Soma Oil & Gas as an Executive Director for Africa. According to the company's website, Hassan Khaire has been with the company since its inception in 2013.[16]

In February 2016, a leaked memo, sent by a United Nations watchdog to diplomats in the United Kingdom and Norway, revealed that the executive director for Africa at Soma Oil and Gas was under investigation by the United Nations Monitoring group for Somalia and Eritrea for possible ties to extremist groups in East Africa, including al-Shabaab, which had claimed responsibility for a series of deadly terrorist attacks in Somalia.[17] The UN letter, dated 17 February 2016, showed investigators raised concerns over Khaire's possible links to extremist groups after obtaining his “electronic contact list”, which it analysed with the cooperation of an unidentified UN member state.They all maintained their innocence from the beginning and were eventually cleared by their accusers after rigorous scrutiny. The UN Somalia Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG) said that it "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.”[18]

On 23 February 2017, President Mohamed announced on Twitter the appointment of Khaire as the new Prime Minister of Somalia.[19] Prior to his appointment, Khaire had never held public office, although over the course of his career he has worked with a range of high-level executives and government officials in various capacities.

In a session held on 1 March 2017, Members of Parliament overwhelmingly approved Khaire's appointment as Prime Minister, 231 of the MPs endorsed the selection.[20] On 21 March 2017, Khaire thanked lawmakers for their overwhelming support. and submitted his nomination for the Cabinet Ministers Somalia, on 29 March 2017 they were approved by the parliament.[21]

He also vowed to tackle corruption by prosecuting individuals involved, regardless of their position, and chaired his first official Cabinet meeting, he reminded the gathered Ministers of his and their duties as statesmen, noting that the administration's focus should be on strengthening the security sector, accelerating institutional reform. His government has been praised for fighting corruption and reforming the Somali National Army. Some regional governments, however, have accused Mr. Khaire for disregarding the Federal constitution. [21]