Saalax Posted July 7, 2017 07/07/2017 President Silanyo is nearing the end of his term amid an economic crisis. According to our sources, it's increasingly unlikely the presidential election will be held on Nov. 13 as announced on June 10 by Abdukadir Iman Warsame, chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) A campaign to distribute election cards has fallen behind time and Somaliland is still lacking the $5 million it needs to stage the ballot. The United Nations and European Union having suspended their pledge to pay 75% of the $9 million required for the election, the government of president Ahmed Mohamed Mahamoud Aka Silanyo has only managed to scrape up $4 million (in two installments) for the NEC. A delegation from Somaliland headed by Musa Bihi Abdi , who's both the leader of the ruling Kulmiye party in Hargeisa and its candidate in the coming election, is due to fly to Riyadh and Dubai to appeal for financial assistance in return for Somaliland's backing for the two countries in the Qatar crisis (ION 1453). Indeed, information gleaned by the Indian Ocean Newsletter indicates that the coffers of the Bank of Somaliland are empty. The country is facing a grave economic crisis twinned with a financial crunch. An embargo on Somaliland cattle imposed by Saudi Arabia has vastly reduced inputs of hard currency (ION 1444) but the situation has been worsened by the re-routing of taxes that Hargeisa should pick up from operations in the port of Berbera, which is mainly managed by the private UAE operator DP World (ION 1451). According to our sources, DP World indeed opened an account at Dahabshiil, , an international funds transfer agency, in Hargeisa. But Dahabshiil is said to have transferred the money to DP World's accounts in the UAE. As a result, DP World doesn't declare losses in Berbera but doesn't pay taxes on its operations in Somaliland, either. To make matters worse, Somaliland's shilling has plunged against the dollar at a moment when the country depends more than ever on imports. https://www.africaintelligence.com/ION/corridors-of-power/2017/07/07/hargeisa-faces-unprecedented-financial-crunch,108253338-ART Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Suldaanka Posted July 7, 2017 This is normal. Budget deficits happen everywhere, whether it is a family budget, company budget or national/state budget. But how people respond to these developments is different. Either you borrow from external sources to finance the planned expenditure or you go about austerity measures by cutting excess expenditure. In Somaliland case, it will borrow from local/private businesses. And the local private business have done it previously during 1999-2002 livestock ban and they know that their money will be repaid. So they are more than happy to lend it. One thing is for certain, every gov't employee be it security forces or civil servant will get their salary on time. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
