How Puntland Can Re-engage with the Federal Government of Somalia

[Deeq A.]

Dr Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the President of the Federal Republic of Somalia, and Said Abdullahi Deni, the President of Puntland State of Somalia.

Garowe (PP Editorial) — When relations between the Federal Government of Somalia and Puntland State soured the consequences for disengagement had begun to threaten the hard-won achievements of state-building initiatives that began nearly 24 years ago. The unilateral amendment to the draft federal constitution was motivated by a desire to take advantage of policy flip flops by Puntland.

In 2022 at the summit for the Federal Government of Somalia and Federal Member States, Said Abdullahi Deni, the President of Puntland State of Somalia, declined to co-sign the communique on the summit. Two areas of disagreements between Mogadishu and Garowe include the fisheries exploitation policy and resources sharing agreements for federal member states. Little is known about the position of Puntland State on these two issues beyond its rejection of the federal government policies on petroleum deals and the centralisation of fisheries licences issued to foreign companies. Puntland claimed that it would act as a separate entity until the controversy over the provisional constitution is resolved.

In 2013 Puntland State did not negotiate with the Federal Government of Somalia to have an arrangement similar to the Special Arrangement through which development aid for Somaliland administration is channeled.

Puntland endorsed an electoral system that allows Somaliland representation in the bicameral legislature in Mogadishu, even though neither an incumbent Somali President nor Somaliland federal MPs and Senators can visit Hargeisa. This dual representation policy for Somaliland administration emboldens diehard secessionists, who claim to have leased a coastal district to Ethiopia for a naval base in January 2024 three weeks after the Federal Government of Somalia signed a defence pact with Ethiopia on, among other areas of cooperation, maritime security.

Without severing ties with the Federal Government of Somalia, Puntland State could attend national consultative summits and leverage its strengths, such as its pre-federal status and the independence of its electoral system, which remains free from federal interference. Puntland has never become a federal member state co-opted by the Federal Government into endorsing power-grab or other measures to undermine the core principles of the federal system such as decentralised structures and political accountability at all level of national and sub-national governments.

It is in Puntland State’s interest to re-engage with the Federal Government of Somalia to honour existing agreements, which enable multilateral institutions like the World Bank and IMF, as well as supranational institutions like the EU, to channel development investments to federal member states. Puntland arguments about the need to accountably harmonise aid distribution mechanisms and to review dual representation advantages for Somaliland administration have merits.

“Puntland remains outside the new framework [intergovernmental framework for fisheries management], as it has suspended all cooperation with the FGS. This nonparticipation presents a risk to sound fisheries management, particularly if Puntland issues fishing licences that are not legal under federal law for activities with harmful environmental impacts (such as trawling)“ argued Somalia’s Financial Governance Committee in its 2023 report. Somaliland’s treatment as a separate entity, not bound by the same obligations imposed on Puntland by existing agreements, led to the Somaliland administration’s refusal to stop shelling Laascaanood in 2023. The Federal Government of Somalia did not challenge the claim by Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi that Somaliland “is a separate country enforcing colonial borders and that his forces were fighting Al-shabaab in Laascaanood.”

Puntland proposed and advocated the federal system, which turns 20 later this year, and in 2012, facilitated the end of the transitional federal government (2004-2012). Re-engagement with the Federal Government of Somalia provides opportunities to rectify political mistakes that Puntland political leaders committed when they agreed to arrangements that centralise power to distribute development aid through Mogadishu, where a rubber stamp bicameral legislature serves the interests of the incumbent government.

© Puntland Post, 2024

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