Somalia President: We Joined the East African Community due to External Requirements

[Deeq A.]

President Mohamud: “We did not make the decision to apply for debt relief, lifting of the arms embargo and joining the East African Community. They were requirements for debt relief and public financial management.”

Mogadishu (PP News Desk) — In his Friday Villa Somalia mosque speech last week President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud explained the reasons for his government adopting policies such as joining the East African Community. “We did not make the decision to apply for debt relief, lifting of the arms embargo and joining the East African Community. They were requirements for debt relief and public financial management” said President Mohamud.

While it is understandable that Breton Woods institutions (IMF and the World Bank) mandate debt relief as a path to national credit worthiness, it is unclear which external actors had pressured Somalia to join the East African Community or seek lifting of the arms embargo in a country that is still reliant upon African peacekeeping forces.

A clip of the speech by President Mohamud at the Villa Somalia mosque last week.

President Mohamud lauded the debt relief and lifting of the arms embargo as two commendable milestones of the Federal Government of Somalia. Somalia has neither a unified domestic revenue structure nor a single currency printed by the Central Bank of Somalia and used as a legal tender throughout the country. Economists have faulted the Federal Government of Somalia for not seeking independent advice on joining the East African Community.

The latest revelation by President Mohamud that key government decisions are externally imposed raises questions about the practice of statecraft in the fragile nation state recovering from state collapse but now mired in a controversy over unilateral constitutional amendments being sponsored by Villa Somalia.

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