Somaliland: The Political, Economic and Social Challenges Facing President Bihi

[Deeq A.]

Reformation of both the health and education which primarily requires a massive restructuring in terms of quality and upgrading to attain the satisfactory standards, while politically post presidential elections campaign reconciliation and institutionalizing Legal tender of Somaliland should be the unit currency of Somaliland shillings ate the main social, political and economic priorities

This is according to Ali Sh. Mohamed Abdi (Adami) Member of the Kulmiye Party Campaigners and for,Dr Somaliland minister in a letter of advice to Somaliland President Musa Behi Abdi, below  Verbatim

ADVICE TO THE NEWLY ELECTED PRESIDENT OF SOMALILAND

Economics

• Create a system of transparent revenue collection throughout Somaliland, as there is no possibility of achieving national development strategies without income generation
• Create anatmosphere of local investment opportunities by encouraging local entrepreneurs to produce agricultural products, fishing, livestock and mining by offering a wide package of incentives and other facilities as well.
• The government has to open up new markets for our livestock
• The government has to set up specialized agencies whose main targets are on how to overcome the high prevalence of extreme poverty and by lowering at least 35% in the next 5 years
• Lowering taxes for business traders, and small scale traders by offering “tax breaks” as part of business promotions
• Reformation of the Central Bank of Somaliland which is indispensably necessary for the national development of the nation to be able to combat the inflationary pressure which is currently in place
• Legal tender of Somaliland should be the unit currency of Somaliland shillings, there should be no two parallel currencies as we frequently use in all business transactions. This system of parallel currencies will involve an unbearable inflation as a result.
• There should be 2-5 years of “economic development plan” based on the government’s priority programs i.e. (having baseline, indicators and targets to be achieved)
• Barter exchange system should be used in the areas where we haveabundant natural resources i.e. “salt” – to be exchanged salt for qat, this will obviously reduce the outflow of hard currency to Ethiopia.

Somaliland

Politics

• To put a special emphasis on how Somaliland will acquire a complete recognition from the International Community
• To reconcile the Somaliland communities with different political views mainly due to the political campaigns which have consequently created deepening social cleavages among the community.
• To establish a good cordial relationship with the neighboring countries of Somaliland
• To establish a confined type of government with a high caliber of personal integrity
• All appointed Cabinet Ministers and high ranking officers should be declared their personal assets before they assumed responsibility of the office
• To revive the anti-corruption agencies to combat the spreading corruptions among the government offices which has now become part and parcel of our cultural life. Corruption is the key obstacle to the viability of economic success if not immediately intervened. The respective recommendations of 2015 and 2017 by the UN Monitoring Group indicates how the corruption has paralyzed the smooth functioning of a government machinery
• The selection ofthemembers of the House of Community Elders (Guurti) should become ones guided by a role model and be based on a clear criteria.
Social

• Reformation of both the health and education which primarily requires a massive restructuring in terms of quality and upgrading to attain the satisfactory standards
• To establish Vocational Training Centers (VTC) to produce the young generations of professional cadres for future developments
• The government should take mandatory measures to promote the level of both the literacy and numeracy rates among the population
• The rapid growth of our urbanization system, in recent years is a complex one which often baseson clansettlements, and it has to be reshaped, and created an “integrated urbanization” which could bring together different settlements of our community into single settlements.

Ali Sh. Mohamed Abdi (Adami)

Member of the Kulmiye Party Campaigners