By Osman H. Yusuf
Somalia -Public administration, governance and corruption
Observers say that the leadership of the current government has probably put in place its own brand of administration which reflects the characteristics of innovation and efficiency of modern management in order to be more effective and keep its promises on the delivery of services, thus making the government’s bureaucracy and hierarchy less of a burden. There is no ‘one fit for all’ model of governing either for public or private institutions and improvements can be made on existing structures and technology to modernize and streamline their work and make it less costly and easier to handle. The current government’s approach to streamline its inner workings and overcome challenges is paying off but it should also be mentioned that parts of the administration are still beset by poor performance and corrupt practices which call for immediate action.
Good governance as a modern process of participatory decision-making carried out through a set of rules to possibly achieve the desired results stands in sharp contrast with the traditional way of government of command and control practiced in some countries of the world. It encompasses all sectors – public, private, society – but the government’s role is to provide an environment conducive for the stakeholders to assume their active participation in the discussions and decisions on issues affecting their rights. It should be mentioned that good governance carried out on the basis efficiency, transparency and accountability is a rare commodity in today’s world as it is an ideal with political and social challenges. This government as in the previous administrations is trying to implement with some success a modern practice of governance to enhance not only the capacity of government institutions but equally encourage awareness and the participation of the society in decision making on issues affecting it at the Federal, State and Local levels.
The international community has put a lot of effort and investment on how the government and other institutions arrive at and make proper decisions with society’s wider participation to deliver services by to streamlining their respective functions. Progress has been made to improve capacity building and development but the then government and the international community officials early on deliberately ignored existing pool of capabilities of former experienced Somali civil service and instead went along with their own plan of starting it all over again and train new recruits mostly from the diaspora selected on ad hoc basis. In the opinion of observers, experienced civil servants should not have been deliberately sidelined or excluded but redeployed while a new generation of young people was being trained to replace them equipped with the skills needed to improve governance. The exclusion of the experienced was an unexpected addition to the already worsening unemployment problem. From the perspective of an efficient and effective administration, making recruitments or appointments on merit or experience makes sense but knowledge, skills and experience which may only be desirable at the political level, should be strictly required for those aspiring to hold important administrative positions who are supposed to lead programs and work out policies involving institutional governance.
This government made it a high priority when it assumed office to eradicate corruption in all its forms and ensure the practice of good governance but so far with limited success. It is regularly reported by some world agencies tracking corruption that Somalia is at the bottom of the list of countries where corruption is said to be rampant and pervasive. Surely, no country or organization in the world is corruption-free but it is invariably used by leading countries or international financial institutions to discipline member countries – mostly developing ones – and tie strict conditions to much needed technical and financial assistance to tackle it. In some parts of the world corruption may be vigorously fought but in others, including our country, it overwhelms the authority especially when influential businesspeople or powerful politicians are involved whose cases never reach the courts but less influential individuals, corrupt or not, bear the brunt of the criminal offence as judged by corrupt courts. On land and home disputes people seek effective justice elsewhere, a fact that is common knowledge.
In a corruption analysis, what comes first to mind is the embezzlement of public funds, whether tax-payers money, abuse of office or power, unlawful tax exemptions, misuse of grants and loans from external sources. Government’s inability to enforce the Law can be seen in the area of revenue mobilization and collection. Certainly, revenue would have significantly increased had import taxes been levied on value rather than on volume basis and the budget deficit would be lower. Those who argue in favor of the status quo in revenue collection are misguided or biased while a comprehensive tax code is yet to be activated for the whole country. One important achievement, however, was the introduction of a bio-metric device or system for the payment of wages and salaries for the security forces by the current government. This was a welcome change which ensured transparency and accountability, a condition required by the international community for aid purposes.
Bad governance adversely affects economic development and breeds corruption and international financial institutions often make it a condition for developing countries to receive aid and assistance to put in place credible reforms of their institutions at all levels. Reforms have to be embraced as the aim is to ensure good governance as well as an efficient and effective delivery of services to the people. However, because of the widespread poverty in the country and lower incomes for officials in a position of decision-making, legitimate public or private business may be distorted by illegal private interests and officials manipulated, a situation which may also be due to bureaucratic inertia and lack of proper supervision that authorities are still struggling to tackle and therefore needs to be vigorously addressed.
Osman H. Yusuf
Email: [email protected]
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Related articles
–Part I – Somalia– Politics, Federal Government and Member States By Osman H. Yusuf
Part II- Somalia – Economy, national currency and foreign exchange By Osman H. Yusuf
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