Welcome to Puntland — the only place on earth where the free market is so free that even poison competes for shelf space. Here, “food safety” is just a colonial plot designed to keep honest merchants from adding that special local touch — whether it’s lead, formalin, or a sprinkling of last night’s cockroach dust.
In Garowe, the Ministry of Public Health operates much like a mirage — visible in speeches, absent in reality. Its budget was swallowed long ago, and now the only time you see the Minister is when he’s cutting a ribbon at a “Public Health Awareness Workshop” in a five-star hotel, smiling in front of a buffet table safer than anything outside the lobby.
Meanwhile, makeshift kiosks bloom overnight like political manifestos. They hawk counterfeit cigarettes, stuffed with God-knows-what, to boys whose lungs seem to have been nationalized. By fifteen, these boys cough out black smoke, but at least the shopkeeper can pay school fees — for his children in Dubai, where milk comes without worms.
And then there are the real survivors — the single mothers and abandoned wives of deadbeat fathers. You’ll find them squatting on dusty pavements or under tattered umbrellas, selling bundles of qaad leaves, the only crop guaranteed to keep the men awake for their political arguments. There’s no microcredit, no welfare, no training programs — just a relentless grind to feed five to ten children on a profit margin thinner than the leaf stalks in their hands. Their business license? Hunger. Their business hours? Until the last leaf wilts or the last coin clinks.
Accountability? In Puntland’s public health and economic sectors, it’s an imported luxury — rarer than Swiss chocolate and far more expensive. You could sue if tainted milk kills your child, but the court will first ask if you can pay the “inspection fee” for the judge’s afternoon tea.
And so, if you can’t trust the water, the milk, the meat, the air, or the economy… at least you can trust the government — to do absolutely nothing, with remarkable consistency.
Warsame Policy & Media Network (WAPMEN) 