Somali President Rides Through a Bumpy Year
By <
http://www.ipsnews.net/author/muhyadin-ahmed-roble/> Muhyadin Ahmed
Roble and <
http://www.ipsnews.net/author/yusuf-ahmed/> Yusuf Ahmed
<
http://www.ipsnews.net/reprinting-articles/> Reprint |
MOGADISHU/NAIROBI, Sep 10 2013 (IPS) - After his first year as president of
the world’s most dangerous and failed state, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is still
grappling with limited financial resources, corruption, a lack of service
delivery, and the ongoing assassinations of government officials, including
attempts on his own life.
The Somali president, who on Tuesday Sep. 10 celebrates 365 days of being
voted into office by legislators, has had a difficult first year of his
four-year term.
Analysts say that not only has Mohamud had to contend with the Islamist
extremist group Al-Shabaab, which has waged a number of recent terrorist
attacks on the capital Mogadishu despite being ousted from key cities across
this Horn of African nation, and an increasing number
<
http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/09/biggest-guns-to-control-somalias-south/>
breakaway states, he also faces a growing and deep disillusionment among
Somalis.
Abdi Aynte, the founder and executive director of the Heritage Institute for
Policy Studies (HIPS), the country’s first think tank, said that Mohamud has
failed to deliver in his first year.
“The Six Pillar Policy has been ambitious, but public service delivery is
practically non-existent,” Aynte told IPS in Nairobi. The Six Pillar Policy
was Mohamud’s strategy to bring security, stability, justice, economic
recovery, and service delivery to Somalia.
“It’s therefore no surprise that no noticeable progress has been made
towards achieving any of it.”
Somalis have lived through almost 20 years of war, poverty and displacement
following the ouster of dictator and former president Mohamed Siad Barre in
1991. The country had no central government until 2000, after which a series
of interim governments were elected.
There are also few essential services or healthcare facilities in the
country, with most being provided by NGOs. For over 20 years Médecins Sans
Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, was one of the few providers of
essential healthcare in Somalia. But in August it pulled out of the country
after the murder and harassment of their staff made it increasingly
impossible for the organisation to operate.
But Mohamud’s aides are quick to defend the former university professor and
civil society activist, who survived an assassination attempt while
travelling to the southern Somali town of Merca on Sep. 3. Presidential
spokesman Abdirahman Omar Osman told IPS that the country had critical
financial constraints that made it difficult for Mohamud to deliver on his
promises.
“The government doesn’t have enough money to do everything,” Osman told IPS
in Mogadishu.
“The government’s monthly revenue is roughly three million dollars from
[income from] Mogadishu’s seaport and the airport, and yet the budget we
need to execute our daily activities is at least 20 million dollars each
month,” he said.
However, Osman’s revenue figure conflicts with that of Mogadishu’s seaport
deputy director Abdiqani Osman Kabareto. Kabareto told local Radio Ergo in
August that the seaport and airport generate between four and five million
dollars a month.
“Imagine a government with such limitations of budget trying to rebuild and
create its institutions from scratch. That is where the problem lies. It’s
not the government’s unwillingness, it’s financial shortage,” Osman said.
Mohamed Ali, a university graduate of Simad University, which Mohamud helped
found, told IPS that although he supported Mohamud’s election, he feels that
there is not much to celebrate a year later.
“I felt he was one of us and the only one who understood our needs, our
suffering, our importance more than any,” said Ali.
Ali, who graduated three years ago with a bachelor’s degree in business
administration, is still struggling to find a job, and he has given up hope
that the president will deliver on his promises of job creation.
The <
http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home.html> United Nations
Development Programme estimates that 67 percent of the youth in Somalia are
unemployed. More than half of Somalia’s 10.7 million people are under the
age of 30.
“He became like any other politician who delivers nothing of what they
promised after getting into office. I saw him as the candidate of hope and
change, but the only thing that has changed so far is the name of the
government from the Transitional Federal Government to the Federal
Government of Somalia.”
In August 2012, the Federal Government of Somalia succeeded the interim
Transitional Federal Government.
Professor of economics and vice president of the Horn of Africa University
in Mogadishu, Yahye Sheik Amir, said limited financial resources were not
Mohamud’s only problem. He said that the endemic corruption within
governmental institutions undermined the possibility of any economic
recovery and development here.
“The government also lacks strategies that can help generate money beyond
the airport and seaport in Mogadishu,” Amir told IPS.
“The government could collect millions of dollars through taxation and
business licence and registration fees for companies working in the country,
only if it expands its administration beyond the capital and also develops
transparent and accountable institutions for managing the revenue,” he
noted.
Aynte urged the government to declare war on corrupt syndicates and to
exercise the utmost transparency. He said that improved security was needed
in order to generate additional revenue.
The government recently began collecting taxes in some areas of the capital
city but a number of its tax collectors have been attacked. At least five
taxmen have been killed this year, while more than 10 were gunned down last
year, according to sources in Mogadishu’s local administration.
Osman promised that a year from now, Al-Shabaab will be defeated and
security and stability will return to the country, and that hopefully the
government will be capable of providing public services.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Osman said, adding that the Somali government
was happy with its progress to date.
HIPS’s Aynte was hopeful about the year ahead. “I’m optimistic that by [the
end of next year] there will be enough impetus to move the country to the
right direction, even if it is slow.”
Received on Tue Sep 10 2013 - 14:44:33 EDT