It was a busy travel weekend and hence the delay in posting my 5 minutes of fame for week 32 of 2024. I was younger and more adventurous last time I drove to Sydney… in fact I hitchhiked after being in Australia for a few months. That was in in 1981. Now it takes me a weekend to travel by car, if not flying, from Melbourne to Sydney with stopover in Canberra. Yes, am getting old.
I was trying to rest and also revisit a few places in Canberra; Australian National University, the old parliament and the deep space station 43. More on this soon. However, I managed to record my weekly 5+ minutes of fame clip, see attached above.
This week my focus was on governance related issues. How can governments govern when institutions are either weak or under development as the case is in Somalia. Particularly when trying to engage the governed, the citizens of a country where confidence in government is very low.
I follow the local Somali politics via the social media as well as the official lines to get the balance right. Unfortunately, the official media outlets; Radio Mogadishu and SNTV seem to be underutilized sometimes, often marginalized and ignored by the government itself. The government junior officials seem to prefer Meta and X (aka as fb and Twitter by the oldies) and the more senior folks seem to use TikTok… interesting times indeed.
So what kept me amused this week?
The Value Add Tax (VAT) or taking the mobile money (MM) transactions piqued my curiosity. The honourable minister of finance explained the need, objective and expected outcome of this regressive tax. But to no avail. This is a bad policy if that is what it is… bad law if it was legislated, as it negatively impacts those who use MM to transfer funds. This needs to go back to the drawing board, engaging all stakeholders is an important first step, that I would highly recommend.
The announcement about the one person one vote also attracted the attention of many Somalis. Certainly not a novel idea, we have been there before. Also, possibility of extending the government mandate… ‘what is new?’ is fair and common reaction among all those who follow the news from Somalia.
And finally, the Somali 🌊, the sea and Ethiopia's desire to ‘have it’ to ‘take it’ one way or another. My take on this is as follows: it is better to negotiate, bilaterally without foreign countries’ involvement. As one of my Australian colleagues said, ‘it is cheaper to buy’… to get this joke, one must be able to appreciate Aussie sense of humor. It is certainly the interest of all concerned not to fight… again.
Till next week, will leave you in peace. Comments, feedback as always welcome.
Governing the almost ungovernable societies...