Puntland Budget Improvements

[DR OSMAN]

Puntland even though their budget is far more realistic and better managed then anywhere in Somalia, it still has areas to improve. The following suggestions is 'constructive criticism' which means, I am not just being 'negative' but showing where positive change can happen. Unlike most Somali criticism it has no real 'substance' beyond 'your not my tribe' and I will find anything to criticise you on.

The way u can tell their criticism isn't about what can be done better since they provide no solution or ideas, so it's obvious it's simply just 'criticism for the sake of criticism'. The problem with this type of criticism is they will be told well how can u criticise me when u don't provide a better alternative? hence this type of argument style crashes on itself on the premise 'at least I am doing something' while you provide nothing better hence the status quo is seen as the best method. Mucarad aan 'solutions' haysan waa 'mucurad' for either 'bribe me' or 'qabiil neceb'.

Now PL budget let's getting cracking where PL has done some public finance management improvements.

1. They created a 'single treasury' account which is quite a good achievement, where-as before their were so many accounts of revenue.
2. They are using 'digital' methods now. This was inevitable since 80% of the region uses mobile money.

Areas that need improvement are the following

To defeat corruption you need 3 ingredients. Transparency, Accountability and Auditing. Transparency means u provide your budget information yearly not just 'forecasts' but 'closures' so it can be seen what happened to the people's money. Auditing means you need an independent agency that is outside the 'govt' control to 'audit' the budget to see where it was allocated and how it was used. An auditor that is named by the 'govt' will lead to no confidence since their not 'free' to carry out their work but will most likely have a conflict of interest in keeping his job rather then keep the govt accountable. Anything he says or reports will be treated with no credibility.

Accountability eventually happens thru good auditors and public disclosure of budget information to the public, each year. Infact all projects carried out in PL should be audited to ensure the money allocated is the job delivered. Without this there is no way to 'fight corruption'. Once this is done, then you need corruption laws passed by parliament on action taken.

The budget should at the very least discuss the revenue collected, percentage of tax applied, sectors that contributed, and aid money. Aid money must be included in the budget or else it may be used 'inappropriately' where it's not accountable. We need then this published on the ministry of finance website showing us how the budget was 'delivered' monthly, quarterly, yearly and the expenses involved and what was left over and showing us the 'policy' it is linked to.

Once that is done we want the auditor general to inspect the budget and investigate the accounts and see it was utilized appropriately following the policy of the govt. The audit general should always provide a yearly report on the previous year budget and the outcomes achieved while showing how it's related to the policy. Once that is done, they should also have a 'separate' donor assessment on projects executed, quality of the project based on the contractual obligations.

This system should be done at the PL regional level first and then when successful to 'delegate' down to the 'district level' to ensure the same operating procedure exists. If we do not do this we will forever be held hostage by the world partners thru middle men such as 'ngos and un' who will be managing our funds for us because we are to dishonest to create a system that gives confidence to donors, that we are 'accountable, transparent, and audited' without this happening, we will alway be viewed with suspicon. Dad aan rabin in lala hisaabtamo waa nin tuug ah is usually the conclusion.

Good governance means transparency not hiding in 'rooms' and in 'secret'. It means transparency and showing the public everything. It means auditing and having a methodology that is acceptable to find out what u did with people money and how it was used and what for and what has been achieved from it is critical.

Some ministries probably exist that just get funded yet do not provide any real 'benefit' any longer and need to be axed so each ministry should prove the money allocated to them and how it was used against what 'policy' of the govt is paramount way to do an 'analysis'.

 

[DR OSMAN]

@Apophis They can achieve good governance thru transparency and auditing = to accountability. There is no point opening a budget and not closing it cause they will just say 'ahhhh our predictions were wrong' nama soo 'galin' what we forecasted even though it may have come in but they spent it all thru corruption and therefore if the budget is 'closed' they will have 'fear' in their hearts because this means it 'can be tracked by an auditor' to see if what was said on policy happened thru the 'books' of 'spending and expenditure'.

There is no 'will' by the people to demand this because they all think by working in a space of no governance will give them the chance to 'cheat or do fraud' and so they all in an agreement to set up no 'accountability' measures, so it's not the task is difficult, it's the will isn't there due to dishonesty being a cultural value

 

[Hassan Garguute Buldanana]

@Apophis They can achieve good governance thru transparency and auditing = to accountability. There is no point opening a budget and not closing it cause they will just say 'ahhhh our predictions were wrong' nama soo 'galin' what we forecasted even though it may have come in but they spent it all thru corruption and therefore if the budget is 'closed' they will have 'fear' in their hearts because this means it 'can be tracked by an auditor' to see if what was said on policy happened thru the 'books' of 'spending and expenditure'.

There is no 'will' by the people to demand this because they all think by working in a space of no governance will give them the chance to 'cheat or do fraud' and so they all in an agreement to set up no 'accountability' measures, so it's not the task is difficult, it's the will isn't there due to dishonesty being a cultural value

Absolutely, every ministry should be able to show and verified where every penny was spent. Every damn penny.

 

[DR OSMAN]

@Apophis for example in garowe they taxed the locals $1 dollar each thru electricity and water companies. It raised up 500k. But since there is no accountabilty, we do not know how much was spent on the road itself or if they collect 'revenue' and spend 250k on the road and then 250k on themselves.

I was very suspicious of that project because when the UN does the road thru JPLG, its' only 250k per kilometer and they have 'accountability', yet the same road cost 500k when the 'garowe mayor' did it, shows me something is wrong. These sort of things can be exposed by an auditor.

Infact they need to present the road project done when the 'bid is over' and let the people know this road cost this much and list the prices such as material, transport, equipment, labour. This will lead us to start trusting the govt more and pay our taxes as we can check somewhere online what happened with the money and compare it to the work delivered.

 

[DR OSMAN]

Absolutely, every ministry should be able to show and verified where every penny was spent. Every damn penny.

It's sad the govt doesn't see what their essentially asking people to do is to give u money from their wealth and u will not give them a website to check how their money was spent last year and to who and what was delivered.

I am not sure how they convince themselves they will continue in this government culture of 'naga war sug' lol or the ' I hear and I obey' resident mindset.

What sort of madness is that, xitaa caqliga salimka ma yeelayo this type of thinking. We all agree we want a beautiful and prosperous garowe and puntland, yet we don't want to use the 'nidaam' to achieve that, is what makes people question the 'genuineness' of our people. Jidki loo mari laha in puntland la qurxiyo ma rabno lakin waxan rabna 'puntland oo qurxoon' waa inconsistent statement

 

[DR OSMAN]

@Apophis There is many problems in PL finance system. Nothing is transparent. They do not even publish 'taxatiton laws' across the market and infrastructure, why? they just make up their own rates as they go and that's why and never let u know what the 'rate' is each 'year' in a public disclosed to all paper.

The reason I suspect they do this, if they 'give' you the 'rates' and the 'industries' and 'infrastructure', u can quickly work out what was collected thru your own calculation and if that isn't reflected in the budget, u will call them out.

So the easiest way is to not be transparent about 'taxation' rate and just collect 'taxes' as you determine and not tell the people, this allows u to 'siphon' away funds for yourself and then report a 'revenue with 50%' missing as the 'final yearly' revenue.

How can u challenge them when they won't tell u what the 'rates' are for different industries like medium business, large, small, airport, port, checkpoints, land rates, etc. If they don't tell u this is the 'rate' and this is how many businesses exist in that industry, there is no-way u can work out what their collecting is actually real or they do collect and then siphon away portions. For example they may say the taxation rate is '10%' and then u have no 'taxation code to refer too' so this guy can just pull out any figure he wants.

What is worse is he can just under-report the revenue collected to the ministry of finance and cut the proceeds between directors/minister and purchase properties overseas while reporting that 100k was collected a month when it was really 500k but 400k was cut between the minister/directors and they put in $100k into the treasury account and say that is the 'revenue' collected. No joke sxb, this is most likely what happens because there is no 'auditor' here nor is there a taxation code that is 'legalized' where people can 'argue' back that their collecting beyond what the 'law' says. The guy will just say there is no 'taxation code law' and we will 'charge u what we like'. Even if they do charge u 'less' they will still take a 'portion' out for themselves and report the rest to the treasury as revenues collected. Yaa jojjin karo? there is no taxation code, there is no list of businesses, there is no auditor, it's just a place of no 'nidaam' sxb and requires u have 'faith' not 'evidence'.

They probably have a list of businesses because they are registered, but they do not give u 'stats' about how many small businesses exist, medium, large. What the different taxation codes are for each. What the infrastructure rates are like roads, airport, port. None of this is provided in transparent way cause it can lead to 'accountability' where people calculate themselves what u claim as the budget is indeed the budget in full or 'missing large portions'. So they leave this 'blank' no public transparency

 

[DR OSMAN]

@Apophis surely u not a kid and don't accept this 'kitaab ku dhaaro' oaths and prefer a evidence based approach rather then an 'oath' and 'good will approach'. Tell them each business that is registered must be displayed before the people, sub-divided into small, big, medium and then we need to group similar businesses into 'sector' or 'industry' like cafes, restaurants, hotels, etc call it 'hospitality' sector and u do the same across the market for different types of businesses.

Once we have this data, then a 'clear and transparent taxation code' has to be set before the public each 4 years by the govt that wins power, this will be determined by their policies of course such as 'less taxes or more taxes' and politicians can compete to prove which is of more benefit.

But a taxation code has to be passed based on 'nidaam', can the tax code change with different govts, yes it can due to their different policies but not the 'nidaam' that remains the same. I don't know who charged more taxes between abdillahi yusuf govt vs cade muse vs farole vs gaas vs deni now. Why? ma jiro nidaam dee, wax lagu noqon karo oo la arki ninkani intu lacag qaatay iyo wuxu reebay haday isku dhigman, u can do comparisons between governments and even develop institutions who now have 'data' to work with to see what works and what doesn't work. But it all starts with having a 'nidaam' and not 'kangaroo' state shit.

Then we can finally have parties develop their policies and 'cost proof' it and present it to the public when running for elections, this will now turn into an 'idealogical' type of politics based on what U WILL DO if elected and how u will do it and the revenues u will need to achieve it.

 

[DR OSMAN]

I will probably have the first proper party in PL that is purely based on 'nidaam'. I will set out my 'taxation code' per business by size and revenue and infrastructure rates. It will be purely 'available' on my 'isman mahmoud party' website lol, ma jirayso 'laablaabasho' or no accountability.

I will set out how my taxation revenue will be used following my policy of 'strong security sector'. I will show how I will secure 'international funds' and who my partners will be for my 'infrastructure' policies, which will be transparent based on what will be targetted, time, date of completion.

I will develop my school/health policy and show what my idea and funds will mean in 'education and health outcomes' will translate too be it rural or urban. I will develop my 'policy' towards Mogadishu and the rest of Somalia arguing for 'confederation' towards a path-way to 'federation' rather then 'balkanization'.

I will develop a policy towards setting up an 'audit general' office outside my control which will be a 'legalized institution' and put before parliament to enact it since this isn't a 'idealogy' but 'institutions' to make the state honest and accountable to an evidence based approach.

I will empower 'PDRC' to gather party information and their 'track record' in governance such as their policies and the budget allocated and what was achieved. I will promote 'human rights' as my 'qadiyad' which I do not shy away from and ask for a 'referendum' to be put before the people of PL where secularists and islamist can compete before the people and present what the benefits are of each 'system' is. A law grounded in god vs a law grounded in human beings.

I will also lay down my 'market' philosophy and my 'housing' vision of PL people and the path towards it thru subsidized 'land plots' for 'workers' based on income, my banking philosophy and beginning a 'education awareness' on developing a culture of borrowing and lending or else you will sit there and die with nothing in 'assets'.

I will promote a 'socialist' market philosophy where the vision if the bulk of the people enjoy wealth to drive investment. I will lay down my 'job plan' and calculations and how funds will be secured for it.

I will have a real party that understands politics is about what u will do and presenting to the people the 'process and costs involved' in your idea. That's all party politics is and it has component of 'qadiyad' involved but it's mainly about 'what u will do' to make the nation prosper and better.