President Farmaajo of Somalia and Prime Minister Kheire ought to remember that people do not hold the government accountable through MPs because MPs have no connection with their constituencies. When the Speaker of the Parliament, Mr. Jawari, urged MPs to visit their constituencies during a recess, roughly 100 MPsgathered in Nairobi to lay out an agenda for using accountability to pressure the governments into appointing some MPs as ambassadors or ministers when the PM will have reshuffled the cabinet.
Giving in to the pressure of some unscrupulous MPs will derail the Somaliland-Somalia talks. If MPskeen on railroading the President and the Prime Minister into enforcing a hastily tabled motion against Berbera Port deal succeed, they will find a pretext for tabling a motion of confidence against the government formed by the Prime Minister less than three months ago. Many MPs allied with the former, corrupt government have had their interests damaged after the Minister for Finance, Dr. Bayle, introduced tax revenue collection system at the Mogadishu International Airport and the Port of Mogadishu. Only 10% of the tax revenues had, in the past, gone to the government coffers before the tax collection policy introduced by the new government had identified loopholes such as cash handled by revenue officers, and fraudulent tax exemption schemes for businessmen.
The parliamentary motion against Berbera Port deal is a stratagem devised by MPs to test the waters with the government whose popularity keeps growing due to anti-corruption measures. The aim of MPs is not to undermine Berbera Port Agreement, alone, their aim is to drag the Federal Government into a pointless political dispute with Somaliland known for its mature democratic processes.
Liban Ahmad