Puntland Government expresses dismay and grave concern over the erroneous and misleading press statement published on August 26, 2013, by the Speaker of Lower House of Somali Federal Parliament Hon. Mohamed Osman Jawari.

The Speaker’s press statement contains deceiving remarks and it is an insult to the hard work, determination, and spirit of cooperation engendered among the Six Somali Roadmap Signatories and the international community’s concerted efforts during the End of Transition Process in Somalia. In addition, Speaker Jawari’s press statement purposefully omitted the term “federal” or “federalism” throughout the two-page document.

Speaker Jawari’s erroneous statement includes the following fallacies (Direct quotes from the Speaker’s statement written in bold below):

• “On June 16th of this year [2013] this constitutional review process was launched officially by the Constitutional Review and Implementation Oversight Committee within the Federal Parliament…”

o The above statement intentionally misinterprets the composition of the Constitutional Review and Implementation Oversight Committee, as noted in Chapter 15 of the Provisional Federal Constitution (PFC), which states: “Each House of the Federal Parliament of the Federal Republic of Somalia shall elect five (5) of its Members as members of the Oversight Committee. In addition, each existing Federal Member State of the Federal Republic of Somali that qualifies as a Federated State under the Federal Constitution of Somalia shall nominate one Federal Member State Delegate as a member of the Oversight Committee.”

• “It has been argued that the version of the Provisional Constitution that was signed by all the Signatories to the Somali End of Transition Roadmap in Addis Ababa in May 2012 is the only legitimate version of the Provisional Constitution.”

o Again, the above statement is false and misleading, as Puntland Government – through written letters to Somali President as Custodian of the Constitution, the Puntland Parliament Speaker’s visit to Mogadishu in June 2013 to discuss the tampering of constitution, and numerous public statements on this national issue – has repeatedly and rightly stated that the Somali Roadmap Signatories signed the Final Draft of the Provisional Federal Constitution page-by-page in Nairobi on June 22, 2012, preceded by the Addis Agreement of May 23, 2012.

o In this regard, Puntland Government researched and compared the Final Draft of PFC signed in Nairobi to the current version, which was distributed to Lower House of Federal Parliament under Speaker Jawari’s leadership on September 7, 2012, three days prior to the election of President H.E. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on September 10, 2012. Speaker Jawari’s version of the PFC includes over 30 articles that have been edited, misinterpreted, deleted, or added, without any legally transparent and constitutionally mandated procedure.

Read more: Puntland Government Response to Federal Parliament Speaker