Mogadishu (Commentary ) — Before joining politics, Dr Abdirahman Duale Beyle, the former Somalia Finance Minister, worked for the African Development Bank. In 2017 he was appointed the Finance Minister of the Federal Republic of Somalia.
Not only did his Ministry devise policies to generate revenue to put Somalia in a stronger position to benefit from debt forgiveness under heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) programme, he also managed to find a way to introduce necessary security reforms in Somalia in 2019.
More than 20 million dollars in salaries were claimed by phantom soldiers and civil servants before the security reforms. Dr Beyle went to the barracks with a team in charge of introducing biometric-based head-counts. Initially, vested interests resisted the reforms, but upon realising that getting not paid will be the consequences of not being registered under the new system, anti-reform camps had to embrace the change.
The second aspect of the reform is that Dr Beyle applied the reform agenda to the Mogadishu-based civil servants. In Mogadishu, getting employed by the Federal Government of Somalia once meant an opportunity to draw several salaries under different aliases. Dr Beyle mandated a biometric-based registration for civil servants. Both reforms saved more than 20 million dollars that were falsely claimed as salaries.
The plan to pilot a federal government revenue collection system throughout federal member states was put in place by the Finance Ministry under Beyle’s watch. Due to his commitment to transparency, the Federal Government of Somalia (2017-2022) demonstrated that fighting corruption requires a political will. If leaders set a good example, the donors will acknowledge the progress made towards introducing anti-corruption measures. Fighting corruption should be an ongoing work; leaders should never rest on their laurels.
Dr Beyle served as a Foreign Minister under the incumbent Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud during the latter’s first term of office (2012-2017). Putland State of Somalia introduced biometric-based security reform similar to the one implemented by the Federal Government in 2019. There is a lot to learn from Dr Beyle’s commitment to transparency and diligence.
D. A. Farah is a senior Somali economist who worked for the Somali Finance Ministry 1981-1991.
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