Bosaaso (PP Report) — Bosaso, a coastal and commercial city in the Puntland State of Somalia, is now in the bad-xiran (summer) season when people who can afford it go on xagaa-bax (leaving the summer heat) and temporarily relocate to areas where the weather is less inclement. The Port of Bosaso and the road linking it with Garowe have a history that very few people are familiar with. Abdirizak Osman Hassan (aka Jurile), a former federal MP, was a Deputy Foreign Minister of Somalia before 1991 and was in charge of projects funded by the former Ente Nazionale Italiano per il Fondo Aiuto per la Somalia (Italian National Agency for the Aid Fund for Somalia) to construct gravel roads in rural areas of Bari, Nugaal, and Sanaag.
“I had to persuade men representing Italian construction companies to amend the terms of the project. Gravel roads will no longer be there after one year. Rainwater will sweep them away. I am going to convince the Somali government to commit the development aid to the construction of a road linking Garowe and Bosaso,” Jurile told Abdi Said ‘Juxa’, the Puntland Interior Minister, who founded Juxa Video Research Archive on YouTube.
Jurile said that early 1986 he “returned to Mogadishu and submitted the proposal to modify the terms of the project”. He told President Mohamed Siad Barre, who was ruling Somalia then, that the construction of gravel roads envisaged in the project did not have any long-term benefits. “I will have to go to Rome to ask for an audience with the Italian parliamentarians to explain the rationale of my proposal,” Jurile told Siad Barre, who accepted Jurile’s vision and promised that he would telephone Bettino Craxi, the former Prime Minister of Italy, to brief him on the suggested changes to the Italian-funded projects to be implemented in regions now known as Puntland State of Somalia.
Jurile went to Rome, where he was granted an opportunity to brief the Italian MPs on the project to construct a 452 km road linking Garowe and Bosaso. “I explained to the Italian MPs that a project for which Italian magnanimity will be remembered is the construction of a road instead of gravel roads that will disappear in a year after the rainy season,” Jurile said. The response of the Italian MPs was positive. A plan to amend the terms of the project was approved after a televised session of the Italian parliament addressed by Jurile.
Initially, the funds allocated for gravel roads were far less than the funds that would have to be committed to the construction of the Bosaso-Garowe road. Questions were raised about the economic viability of the road since Bosaso did not then have a seaport. “A decision to build a small 270-meter port for a ship carrying a maximum of 8 tons of cargo and with three 50×50 berths was recommended. Two hundred fifteen million dollars was spent on the construction of the 452 km road. Four hundred seventy-five thousand dollars was spent on each kilometer of the road. The cost to build a small port in Bosasso was 10 million dollars. We celebrated the completion of all projects in Waaciye district,” said Jurile.
“A quarter of a billion dollars was spent on an unnecessary road in northern Somalia,” wrote the late Peter Bridges on Bosaso-Garowe Road in his memoirs, Safirka: An American Envoy. The economic evidence contradicts his verdict. Both the Bosaso-Garowe Road and Bosaso Port have transformed a region once known as Gaari-waa, meaning “difficult to reach,” which had been adversely affected by benign neglect, into an economically vibrant region that hosts more than 2 million Somali IDPs who fled the civil war in the south after the collapse of the state in 1991. The Bosaso-Garowe Road and Bosaso Port are a remarkable testimony to Somalia-Italy relations and an example of an enduring development initiative generously funded by the Italian taxpayers.
© Puntland Post, 2024
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