Somaliland: Mayors Express Mixed Feelings About Land Directive

[Deeq A.]

The Berbera Mayor Cllr. Abdishakur Mohammed Idin has scoffed at the directives of the Public Works, Land and Housing Minister Hon. Abdirashid Duale Qambi that demanded all town halls suspend the planning and adjudication of public lands.

The directives also entail the availing of all public lands handed over to the seating civic administration by the preceding ones hence supply details of all allocations made since. The order of the public works minister comes hot on the heels of the Presidential directive that suspended the allocation of Berbera beach plots.

“The Public works has its own roles and we have ours”, Cllr. Idin was quoted by our sister paper Dawan. “The land adjudications and allocations done within the municipalities are our responsibilities and not that of the public works department”, he further charges. He said that the rights the department of lands had was for the to seek plot for public amenities needed from the civic authorities!

Cllr. Idin who depicted and sounded clashing of conflicting roles (and roles of conflict for the matter) charged that the minister’s order is not at par with that of the President. Clear as the directive was, his Hargeisa city counterpart Cllr. Abdirahman Mohamud Aideed on the other hand told reporters that his council was to handover for registration 3474 plots to that effect.

He further outlined in details types of ministries, institutions, organizations and associated lands for public amenities allocations done. He noted that they were to register with the interior, Finance and public works ministries, the attorney general and the judiciary. Whatever the case this conflict that has emerged, and public means of conveying administrative procedures, calls for the setting up of a national lands adjudication body.

It is worth noting that H. E. President Musa Bihi Abdi had added the docket of lands to be as a whole division in the new reorganized ministry of public works, lands and housing. The imperativeness and indispensability of the land department has been now magnified for the first time in the country by the central government.