Category: Gara’ad Port

ROADMAP FOR PUNTLAND DENI PRESIDENCY

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By now the President should have in place a major reform package for the State’s suffocating and duplicating bureaucracy. By now the President must have shown his vision as to where he would take Puntland State. By now the President must have committed himself and his administration to a democratization process as the old clan POWER-SHARING arrangement had hit a dead-end and should be discontinued. By now the President should have inspired the people of Puntland for renewal of hope and revitalization of socio-economic life in this part of Somalia. By now the President should have cleared the confusion surrounding on how to move forward in terms of cooperation between Puntland and its international partners. By now the President should have studied the dubious P&O and DP WORLD Bosaso Port contract and clarified Puntland position on whether to revise the infamous contract or discard it all together.

Puntlanders had never seen or shown publicly this suspicious Bosaso Port Deal with the UAE ambitious and aggressive firm, the P&O. The President needs to hire a team of highly experienced business and civil contract lawyers to look into this contract with P&O. And by the way, has President Deni seen that contract? Nobody in Puntland did see that secret document, including the previous members of House of Representatives ( the Parliament), who corruptedly approved the deal.

We see only slow piecemeal steps and occasional visits to various departments in Garowe, but no meaningful announcements or significant undertakings on the part of Deni Administration until to-date. If there is something you know, please share it with us.
By tradition, Puntlanders are extremely patient to wait and give chance to any Puntland incoming administration, but they are anxious this time around to see bold steps and tangible results from President Deni.
Too much time spent on a learning curve indicates the President is not yet ready to govern and would waste the first year of his administration as the 100 days measured in sizing up the President without achieving any major item of his election platform.
Puntlanders’ eyes are on the President to deliver the goods and quickly.
And one final thing: leadership doesn’t operate in the dark. It is about openess or transparency and public guideness

PRESIDENT DENI AND PEOPLE OF MUDUGH TODAY

Galkayo, May 20, 2019

Mudugh & Security Council. Take a listen.

SHOW-CASING GARA’AD PORT: DENI vs GAAS

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2123799034413942&id=100003515972236

It was 1997 when a delegation of now defunct National Salvation Council (NSC), the Sodare Group, led by then Co-Chairmen Abdullahi Yusuf and Ali Mahdi Mohamed, went to Mogadishu to meet with an Italian envoy sent to mediate conflicting Mogadishu Warlords of Hussein Aideed, Ali Mahdi and Late Osman Ali Ato. I was one of that 13-member strong delegation. The intention of the Italian Envoy, Senator Serri, a deputy minister of the Italian Foreign Ministry, was to re-introduce Italy’s influence to the re-emerging Somalia from the Civil War. The idea was for Italy to be ahead of everyone else in the game of influencing Somalia as a former colonial power and power broker as the country re-instates itself from the total collapse as a failed state. The Italians believed that the obstacle to Somalia’s recovery was the warring factions of Banadir Region at the time. They had money incentives to bribe the warlords into accepting an Italian-brokered deal. Ali Mahdi wanted a piece of the cake. Abdullahi Yusuf planned to foil the Italian efforts as he thought the Italian policy was wrong-headed as he believed that Somalia couldn’t be reconstructed from the Centre, but rather from “Building-Blocks” as federated states. There was a deep mistrust between Aideed and Ato since the killing of Aideed Sr. The Italian Envoy’s mission to Mogadishu ended in spectacular fiasco to the pleasure of Abdullahi Yusuf.

Back in Nairobi enroute to Italy, and commenting on the unexpected Yusuf’s presence in Mogadishu, Senator Serri called a hasty press briefing during which he declared; “We were struck by an eagle in town”.

After two weeks in Mogadishu, we returned to Addis Ababa, the Headquarters of the NSC, to prepare for a national congress to be held in Bosaso, the North-eastern Regions of Somalia. Egypt, with the help of the traditional Ethiopian foreign policy naïveté on Somalia’s internal dynamics, had successfully undermined both the NSC and IGAD efforts to hold that National Reconciliation Congress in Bosaso. One would recall the failed Somali Peace Conference in Cairo in 1997, resulting in the demise of both the Sodare Group and “Salbalaar Government” of Hussein Farah Aideed.

While in Mogadishu, we held non-stop private and public discussions with many groups, representing all walks of life. These people had two nagging questions for us to answer:

  1. “How do we participate in the planned National Reconciliation Congress in Bosaso”?
  2. “Why don’t you construct a Gara’ad Port? Bosaso Port is too far from us”.

At the time, Mogadishu Port was un-operational and closed to business. Still residents of Central Somalia thought a Gara’ad port would be very convenient for them even if Mogadishu Port were functional. At that time they were using land transport to and from Bosaso Port.

In Addis Ababa, residents from Eastern Ethiopia are land-locked as it is in the rest of the country. They were very much interested in the construction of a nearby seaport as Gara’ad.

The commercial potential of the Gara’ad Port for Somalia and Ethiopia is huge. The economic and security importance of the port in the entire region is, without doubt, very high. I strongly believe that a Gara’ad seaport would be the most convenient outlet to the Indian Ocean for the peoples of Central Somalia and Eastern Ethiopia for quick movement of goods and services along stable and secure corridor.

By Ismail Warsame

Ismailwarsame@gmail.com