MADAX-KA-NOOL

Mogadishu, May 13, 2019 – Interesting to note that the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) of Somalia was literally a ghost space from Saturday, 4th May to Sunday, 10th May, 2019. All offices at OPM remained deserted during this period, with no staff and no work attended to.

There was no reason given for the offices in the OPM to remaining closed, staff staying out, with no work taking place for such an extended duration.

For those that have been following Somalia news, the Prime Minister of Somalia (Hassan Ali Khaire) had been out in Garowe since departing Mogadishu on Saturday, May 4 and is (was) still holed up there, for the eighth day running, for a meeting that so far remained nameless, agendaless, and outcome-less between the executive leadership of FGS and FMS.

The deputy Prime Minister too was away from office, where he left Mogadishu, reportedly, on Wednesday before the PM left for Garowe to attend to assignments in places outside the country that included Tana forum, in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.

That no work was taking place in OPM offices while the PM was away is indicative of a phenomenon commonly refered to in Somali lingo as “madax ka nool.” In Somalia public service, in most cases, when the boss is away from office everyone else will also stay away.
This means the boss is the institution and the institution is the boss.

Bravado aside, OPM stayed true to its mantle of “madax ka nool.”

By a Staff Writer