Why Is Everything Slow In Puntland?

[DR OSMAN]

I know all puntites especially @Yonis are frustrated at the lack of speed involved in projects. Projects that take a few months can take a year in PL. This is a massive problem for PL economic development if everything that is done is slow because it means you end up producing less over-all across every industry due to your slow speed.

This slow paced development effect everything from road developments to housing developments, anywhere I noticed there is a 'construction' phase, their is a huge problem in our production rate and it shouldn't be overlooked. Why does it take an Australian builder with a team of 5 only to complete the same house specification in 12 weeks, yet it takes PL to do such house over a year while utilizing far more labour force, it's usually like 20-30 people from what I seen on site for construction of what is basic homes.

I hope PL stops ignoring this critical aspect of economic recovery and development. It's not just the investor phase you should be concerned with, but the production speed of your work-force is clearly not in-line with world standards. Their has to be an investigation into this by the government and see what is causing this crippling slow pace. Is it bad construction practises, poor management, bad work culture, I still don't know what it is and that's why I hope the govt does a 'commission' on our market place and find out the rate of production over a time period such as an hour, day, week, month, year, etc.

We need to investigate this and find out how to speed up our production. Is it the equipment, training of workers, is it management who do not work on a schedule? is it poor project management to ensure tasks are achieved within a certain time-frame? with-out solving this problem, it can lead to less development because investors and donors prefer construction follows a time-table that is based on tasks and deliverables so they can keep their costs measured, if you do not provide this sort of construction management plans, it can lead to people walking away as it's to risky to invest because it's not measurable according to a time-frame.

Are the workers not following a schedule and methodology? is it the 'materials' which is causing time problems especially if it's imported. PL needs to do an investigation into this and provide a solution where the problem is, so things can be done quickly. The longer u take on a project, the more costs involved is well known, so being quick in production means more value for money, especially if your working to a budget, you need to ensure there is no production flaws in your society or else it could lead to a blow out of the budget assigned. The budget takes into consideration materials, labour which is 'fixed costs' but what isn't 'fixed' is the 'time' and if you do not follow proper project management methodologies, it could mean more time goes into the project and more time means more labour costs.

If the construction staff need training, bring in the right trainers to show them how to be productive with their time. Have a manager ensure the workers are achieving the tasks based on the hourly deliverables or daily deliverables or weekly deliverables. What has been measured and agreed has to be delivered and you need to keep the investors in the loop with status reports when key phases have been done.

 

[DR OSMAN]

It never made sense to me how one australian has the production power of 20 Puntites? it makes no sense whatsoever. Think about it 5 workers per house over 3 month period means that team can produce 4 homes in a year. So for 4 homes a year, that is nearly a rate of 1 house per person a year in production value.

Where-as in PL. You need 20 people just to build the same House in one year. So that's like 1 australian is worth 20 Somalians in terms of his product value. So it's clearly not how much people you have on-board that counts, it's the skills involved and timetable followed that matters the most.

 

[repo]

I think it is due to supplies. They order things as they need them rather than ending up buying too many materials they do not need. So in my opinion this is due to fluctuating demand.

Materials end up costing more due to transportation to inland towns on bad roads, this is why we need more and better roads.

The government dropped the ball on some of the projects but they are finally being done now however we won't see the positive effects for many years to come.

 

[DR OSMAN]

I think it is due to supplies. They order things as they need them rather than ending up buying too many materials they do not need. So in my opinion this is due to fluctuating demand.

Materials end up costing more due to transportation to inland towns on bad roads, this is why we need more and better roads.

The government dropped the ball on some of the projects but they are finally being done now however we won't see the positive effects for many years to come.

Why don't we have one major re-seller who's job is too import and let him control that industry and stock up in supplies rather then every tom, dick, and harry wasting money on importing. The govt needs to regulate the import game, too many small time traders all going to China and shit when they should just have one single importing company for all Somalia and reselling it.

Bosaso should be a 'reselling place' not a place where u 'dock down your own goods', no you buy your goods rom Bosaso market place and take it back to your region. It saves them shipping cost and it saves our port from over-usage for petty reasons. While increasing our employment market. Imagine we had warehouses of timber, vehicles, cement, food stuff, phones, medication, etc and we sell it to Somalis we would have a huge industrial scale shit happening now with more employees working in warehouses.

 

[DR OSMAN]

@sincity Bosaso/Garacad should focus on securing new markets and being a reseller to Africa, especially landlocked countries like Ethiopia-Rwanda-South Sudan. We need to be real competitive and offer 're-distribution' center not an import center, this can bring down costs of 'shipping' and we can begin 'storage' centers in Bosaso and Garacad of market goods and products for Somalia and also the general region.

This can fuel our warehouses to grow with more products/goods and truck drivers delivering it to the end client while increasing employment for locals in the supply chain be it drivers or warehouse workers.

We then need to tap urgently into 'tourism' we need to start with targetting 'africans' to come to Puntland by advertising on their 'tv's and radios' so they bring hard currency and create demand for our hotels/cafes/restaurants/shops.

We need to do be the 'specialising' country that does 'outdoor' activities like 'sky jumping', snorkelling, para gliding, and all the extreme sports. This is a real dead sector in Africa but the demand for fun activities is there. We could even expand into being the first 'african theme park' in the future.

But the fuel of our economy shouldn't be 'trade or tourism', that is ok 'side industries'. Our fuel must be creating 'entrepeneurs' and employing locals and creating a middle class thru banking. We should be about loans/borrowing/lending. Our biggest industry should be purely banking where it's so active with borrowing/lending services to create new businesses and new employees. Those new businesses can serve local, regional, or global profile, it's up to them where they want to target for customers but the fact the 'borrowing and lending' happens in PL is critical so it can lead to our banks becoming wealthier where we can start 'loaning' money to african countries like the west does now for us. But it happens because u need a banking culture and banking being the 'core' of the economy, the rest can be 'additional sides'.

The meat on the plate needs to be banking, while the vegetables on the side can be trade, oil, fishery, farming, livestock.

 

[DR OSMAN]

@sincity I say begin with a pilot project of 100 people in Bosaso/Galkacyo/Garowe/Qardho. That is 400 loans. Lend 100k to each which is 4 million. Set a rate of return of 5%. Watch the bank get 5% wealthier, while watch 400 business people enter the market hiring possibly 1000-2000 people.

Re-direct those 1000-2000 people into 'middle class' thru 'govt set wage laws' that are adjusted to ensure employees income matches 'property prices' so it can fuel growth in home ownership and then have the bank 're-serve those new employees thru mortages' that's another 1000-2000 new homes, this automatically creates new supply chains immediately for construction companies, plumbers, electricians, electricala, water companies, furniture, bedding, vegetables, meat, milk, etc also get a nice boost of cash injection into their respective businesses.

All the While the bank is collecting 5% from each one of those 1000-2000 new home owners over 20-30 years so let's say they give 100k home-loan to each one of those new employees, that's $1 billion circulating just in the hands of those new employees which is 1 billion in boost to real estate companies and the supply chain like electricians, plumbers, water. U see how the market works sxb? Thru that 1 billion with 5% return rate. The bank made a surplus of $50 million over 20 years while creating 1 billion dollar worth of property purchases and 400 new business people delivering new products and good or services.

Imagine our next pilot project scales the entrepeneur stream to 1000 new businesses which will translate to 5000 new workers and that's 5000 new home-loans. The banks makes a killing just thru the home loans and makes a killing thru the new business loans. While injecting that cash into property market and business sector which creates a 'side-effect' of cash into supply chains who all start to eat and they also start to get wealthier and invest into more employees as their companies are growing due to the country having a banking system and banking culture in place to fuel it's own wealth.

f*ck 'teeri' that nigga doesn't know shit about how economics and how to maximise the 'dollar' across all sectors so employment grows in each industry.

 

[DR OSMAN]

@sincity waryaa I hope PL does a pilot project so they can see how this works. Just thru 100k investment into 400 new business people thru banks is an investment of $4 million. Waryaa duli yahow listen to me. That hotel we love in PL called Martisoor was about 3-5 million investment. Do u think it will generate the same wealth like a Bank would? hell no.

A bank is fuelling 400 new business people into market who bring in a new 1000 workers. Imagine that a mere 4 million loan with 5% rate of return over 5 year pay back period is only $200k profit margin. But look at the benefit side. 400 new businesses, 1000 new workers.

The real money maker starts now, when those 1000 new workers want to buy homes, they will go to the bank and ask for a mortgage. This is when the bank makes more money then it did initially with 400 business loans. That's 1000 people all needing 100k each. That's 1 billion going into the property sector. That 1 billion the bank loaned will get 5% return. That's 50 million added to the coffers of the bank on top of their 1 billion principal paid back. That $50 million then get's re-distributed back to shareholders based on their percentage of capital invested. That's why people love banking in economists.

 

[repo]

Why don't we have one major re-seller who's job is too import and let him control that industry and stock up in supplies rather then every tom, ****, and harry wasting money on importing. The govt needs to regulate the import game, too many small time traders all going to China and shit when they should just have one single importing company for all Somalia and reselling it.

Bosaso should be a 'reselling place' not a place where u 'dock down your own goods', no you buy your goods rom Bosaso market place and take it back to your region. It saves them shipping cost and it saves our port from over-usage for petty reasons. While increasing our employment market. Imagine we had warehouses of timber, vehicles, cement, food stuff, phones, medication, etc and we sell it to Somalis we would have a huge industrial scale shit happening now with more employees working in warehouses.

Time is not money in Somalia.

A reseller will charge you extra for the convenience but many will opt to go for the source cause you get it cheaper even though you have lost time that equals the extra cost.

So to you and me it might look like they are wasting money but in their eyes they are saving a few bucks. For Bosaso to be a reselling place it needs to have great transportation to the rest of the country and it doesn't have that, nobody has that.

 

[repo]

@sincity Bosaso/Garacad should focus on securing new markets and being a reseller to Africa, especially landlocked countries like Ethiopia-Rwanda-South Sudan. We need to be real competitive and offer 're-distribution' center not an import center, this can bring down costs of 'shipping' and we can begin 'storage' centers in Bosaso and Garacad of market goods and products for Somalia and also the general region.

This can fuel our warehouses to grow with more products/goods and truck drivers delivering it to the end client while increasing employment for locals in the supply chain be it drivers or warehouse workers.

We then need to tap urgently into 'tourism' we need to start with targetting 'africans' to come to Puntland by advertising on their 'tv's and radios' so they bring hard currency and create demand for our hotels/cafes/restaurants/shops.

We need to do be the 'specialising' country that does 'outdoor' activities like 'sky jumping', snorkelling, para gliding, and all the extreme sports. This is a real dead sector in Africa but the demand for fun activities is there. We could even expand into being the first 'african theme park' in the future.

But the fuel of our economy shouldn't be 'trade or tourism', that is ok 'side industries'. Our fuel must be creating 'entrepeneurs' and employing locals and creating a middle class thru banking. We should be about loans/borrowing/lending. Our biggest industry should be purely banking where it's so active with borrowing/lending services to create new businesses and new employees. Those new businesses can serve local, regional, or global profile, it's up to them where they want to target for customers but the fact the 'borrowing and lending' happens in PL is critical so it can lead to our banks becoming wealthier where we can start 'loaning' money to african countries like the west does now for us. But it happens because u need a banking culture and banking being the 'core' of the economy, the rest can be 'additional sides'.

The meat on the plate needs to be banking, while the vegetables on the side can be trade, oil, fishery, farming, livestock.

It's the government's job to foster an environment that is conducive to entrepreneurship and that's not the case in Somalia.

We don't even have property laws. Those laws were what gave rise to the industrial revolution and protected entrepreneurs. If we don't have them, we can forget about any possible industries to take place.

Look at other regions today, look at Somaliland their leader is literally stealing land. What will we do when we reach that point, which law will protect the ordinary citizens?

We have to focus on critical infrastructure and the law then we can get on with business.

 

[Ras]

Incentives makes the world go round.

In America if you snooze you lose through inflation, interest payments, opportunity costs etc.

There's also few players in the construction business so they get to decide the pace since you can't replace them.

The cursed sun doesn't help either. Just going outside is a chore ... forget months of hard labor.

 

[Mozart]

You can only crowdfund so much before you need private investment. There was a conference last year and nothing came of it because they questioned stability in the region. Puntland is at a crossroad now and for further progress independence is super necessary.

 

[DR OSMAN]

You can only crowdfund so much before you need private investment. There was a conference last year and nothing came of it because they questioned stability in the region. Puntland is at a crossroad now and for further progress independence is super necessary.

The problem is what type of investor do u want. PL should ask for investors in the banking sector, so it can fuel it's own business growth, where-as you know investment as 'foreign investors' into a business, the problem with this type of investment is the benefit mainly goes to their country of origin not your country beyond 'business tax yearly and low skilled jobs' it doesn't really change your market wealth, it will change his market wealth as he will report his profits back into his country banking system who of course will enjoy the fact that they grew their bank soo large, they have now their locals expanding globally to target other markets in the world, all fuelled by their banking industry.

Why would u want to be on the 'end cycle' of another bank growth when u can simply start your own and fuel your growth? it makes no sense, you are tied to the banks no matter what, the question is will you be tied to your own banks or foreign banks. If you tie yourself to foreign banks, then most of their investors will re-invest back into their country the profits made in your country. Foreign investment is a terrible idea sxb, it doesn't change your regional wealth whatsoever besides helping another man and his country thrive.

PL needs to invite investors and say just provide the 'capital' in our banks, give them their share percentage from growth but at least now you supplied your market with more businesses, more employees and not mention the benefits to be gained by the supply chain in the market like the service sector will boom as a side effect to the new employees providing more growth to cafes, restaurants, shops since their is more money now in the hands of the people. Imagine the boom in property sector and vehicle purchases, imagine the boom in electical/water/plumbing companies with more work due to the residential market exploding. All this is achieved thru a single 'policy' and it's called Banking.

U provide people with the capital infrastructure to fuel their own business ideas. This is far better then the never-ending dependence of 'remittance, grants, charity' this leads to a path-way of self independence and your own financial wealth which grants, aids, remittance will forever make u dependent and has no path-way to financial wealth. When you invite a foreign investor to invest into any business, you also invite that he takes the profit and that profit. I find it embarassing that you want foreigners to build you your own businesses when u should be saying just give our people the capital and I want my own people to build it themselves and own it themselves as this is now Puntland wealth not Foreign companies wealth which is calculated as apart of their foreign earnings in their GDP calculation. Those calaculations will not be apart of your country earning beyond the 'cleaners and security guards' they hire, and let's be honest, that's all they will hire plus the meager business tax is a poor economic model.

How do somalis convince themselves of the fact you want another man to build you your market place this is disgusting colonial economism, are u that stupid to do yourself?

 

[Inquisitive_]

@DR OSMAN I agree with you with regards to foreign investment, this is terrible especially more so for an impoverished nation that has zero leverage.

At least the Chinese were able to enforce technology transfer and other concessions as well as embarking on an ambitious espionage campaign to steal what was out of reach.

It was a colossal win for them and much of there populace got invaluable experience from it so once they started doing it themselves the transition was smooth.

But in Somalia it's different, It's hard to get basic things done due to rampant corruption from top to bottom, even something as simple as building a house or painting your house attracts hungry underpaid soldiers or police that shake you down on a daily basis for money, not to forget the cut the regional government gets.

When you add instability, lack of security, severe lack of infrastructure, and the fact that we have the most expensive electricity in the world, it's impossible to get anything done sxb.

Those 400 businesses you talk off will quickly go bust once the electricity bills, taxes and bribes are paid, they can't even scale because of the horrific infrastructure and all the check points taking a cut.

Your approach is better then the foreign investment one but unfortunately it will not work until sufficient infrastructure is built first and the cost of electricity is significantly reduced and stability provided.

This way businesses will explode and thrive and then naturally the need for banking will come, your approach is placing the cart before the horse.