Somaliland Is In A Do-Or-Die Situation.

Since information is the core of life, life is all about information. But information is not only what evolves from the things we need to know, but also everything we do and our reactions to events that happen around us.

When freedom of information and transparency are stifled, then bad decisions are often made and serious mistakes occur – usually on a scale that can leave societies wondering: How did this happen?

Democracy is built on open societies that share information. “Where there is information, goes the saying, “there is enlightenment. Where there is debate, there are solutions. Where there is no sharing of information and power, there is no rule of law, there is no accountability, but there is corruption, there is denial and there is indignation.”

Somaliland people need more access to what the government is doing in their name. This requires accountability and transparency on all briefings specifically relating to national issues that government officials make through press releases.

Government official press releases must usually evolve from accurate undoctored information that is related to a specific subject and be presented within a context that gives it meaning and interpretive transparency that can lead to an increase in understanding and decrease in doubt.

The main weakness of Somaliland democracy  is that it  gives power to gofers who can easily fall for the words of demagogues. One good example is those ministers who say something today and say something else tomorrow on the same topic, like the finance Minister, Saad Ali Shire who seconded everything the MP Mr Ibrahim Mahdi Buubaa said in the recent press release that related to Eighty-million-dollar debt that caused a shocking confusion.

As we remember, transparency was a crucial commitment meant to shatter the glasses of corruption and an indispensable condition to stop Kulmiye’s misleading politics that the three candidates made in 2017 presidential election campaign. But the process necessary to fulfill that  promise and achieve that essential goal still remains unattended intentionally. The only reason this promise is not fulfilled yet is that the head of the ruling party wants willingly the continuation of corruption.

Trust comes from transparency. Trust and efforts achieve milestones. Achievements and accomplishments come from a radical reformation. Corrupt leaders never create comfortable zones. Why the current administration now shrugs off transparency?   A government that shrugs off transparency intends to rob the nation.

Great seamen know that a leak can sink a ship and wise politicians know that a single phrase can reverse trajectory and turn a thundering cannonball into an ominous boomerang.

Dr Saad loftily informed the MPs responsible for following up Public Property Accounts during an investigating visit to the Finance Ministry that there is a debt of around eight million us. He could not have imagined that within days the taunt would return to haunt him.

Since the chairman of Public Property Accounts Committee, Mr Ibrahim Mahdi Buubaa, flanked by Somaliland Finance Minister, Mr Saad Ali Shire, revealed in a press release that the current administration is stumbling on how to settle an disclosed debt of eighty million US dollars, it may be opportune, as the Minister of Finance started two days later to squabble towards debt, to raise two parallel questions: When Mr Saad Ali Shire is right and when he is wrong, when he is telling the truth and when he is lying, since he didn’t correct the MP at the time of releasing this heartbreaking information?

Dr Saad’s debt denial has been like a list of  commands meant to defend the indefensible, ailing hearts wheezing and gasping for life. Why he didn’t seek an advice from who hired him as a finance minister? The unsaid is so much more interesting than the said.

The main purpose of education is to acquire knowledge that prepares us to face life and help build our characters. If the only purpose of knowledge acquisition is to earn money, then education is narrowed down to the knowledge required for only a low level of subsistence.

Somaliland finance minister is a highly educated man, but with a PhD that made him richer, with a lot of money, but unfortunately poorer in thoughts. A PhD loses its reputation when those who hold drag it on the ground just for the sake of subsistence.

Today the interesting question is:Where does the debt end up and stop? Summing up an interpretive unbiased analysis drawn from the conclusions of a series of facts and figures, the debt, whether wearing the face of the Cobra, Siilaanyo, or the face of the new action force that rules now the country,  is a mix of Kulmiye’s joint operation to steal public wealth. Incurred or not incurred is not the point, the aim is to get opulent wealth out of public treasury through illegal procedure. The debt really stops at two desks: The presidential palace and the Ministry of Finance.

If political famine is killing Somaliland progress, it is because of corruption. If  government is fed up of accumulated debt, it is because unlimited expenses are allocated to the presidential palace, if budget deficit is out of control, it is because a number of senses are always inferior to the way budgeting is prepared by the government officials, if Somaliland public is confused over where this country is heading to, it is because the road map for the country’s future is not in the leadership’s agenda.

It is not possible to live in a constant kind of confusion. It is not possible to tolerate to always align your principles with unrestrained corruption. It is not possible to accept what no other society could accept, tolerate and even try to ignore. Why few people are taking power of this land in their hands and do whatever they want to? Why the law of this country does not work?

Here is a question that demands an accurate answer  Why do we say “rule of law” rather than “law of rule” ? Because law comes before rule.  Law defines the nature of rule, the difference between order and disorder, difference between chaos and order, difference between civility and savageness, difference between  decency and indecency, difference between violence and non-violence.

Who among us can argue that Somaliland lives in where there is a law and order? If law works in this country, why every Kulmiye administration makes plans to take a lot money illegally out of national treasury?

For me, the central message of 2019 has two principal goals: a credible promise to lift Somaliland’s economy out of paralysis; and the assurance that national resources will be an inclusive force that reaches out to all segments of the nation.

This is the hopeful evolution from bad governance to good governance. Bad governance is possible from negative factors, like the ego and arrogance that stem from unlimited greed and low thinking. Good governance is fashioned by honesty and integrity, coupled with a living conscience connected consciously to the natiinal pride.

There are no national development projects in the budget for the year 2019. The budget allocated to the presidency and the Ministry of Finance is much more than the budgets allocated to FIFTEEN Ministries put together. Besides this there is three percent on the total budget for 2019 that is purposefully put aside for government debt without any details.

The misery staring at Somaliland at this moment is that the wheel has slipped back into a quagmire of the year 2010, and indicates now that corruption is a non-negotiable liability.

Somaliland is in a do-or-die situation.  Which of these two ways Somaliland would prefer to go?  A sermon on the Mount with its appeal to the meek who shall inherit the earth; Or resurrection, which promises hope in the mess of despair.

The rainbow coalition’s agenda is not yet over, and its will is not exhausted. They have no answers beyond stealing public wealth on the one side and lying to Somaliland people on the other. While the first is shameful, the second is startling.

By: Jama Falaag

       Hargeisa, Somaliland