By Mohamed M. Abdi Gescade
In the eyes of my kinsmen from Jariiban and Garacad in the Mudug region of Somalia, they have officially joined the league of developed parts of the country. For the first time, there will be a tarmac road linking our hamlets to the rest of the world.
Add this to the fact that the little hamlets are connected to the national electricity grid, and most schools have concrete walls and floors. In essence, we are developing!
To my people, development does not have to endure muddy roads during the rainy season. It is having lit-up shopping centers where we can charge our phones and grind our thirst in cafeteria. It is granting our school-aged children the luxury of not having to walk in long distance to school every morning. Roads and infrastructure development in general remain a big deal – and not just in my village. A promise of accomplishing any of these is a seductive ruse by many an aspirant for political office. The presidential hopefuls in Puntland were wont to promise to make a tarmac of our main roads while the aspiring local mayors and future hopeful leaders, mainly from the diaspora, would regale us with grand plans to drastically develop every village. For many people, smooth tarmacked roads, clean accessible water and electricity, on their own, should be a potent charm against poverty.
Infrastructure is actually a foundation, a catalyst and a critical enabler of development. It is a facilitator of enterprise that eventually translates into wealth and lifts communities out of poverty.
Smooth roads should enable nomadic farmers in the hinterland to ferry their animals and other products more efficiently to the market. It will make the investor, whom every town is busy wooing at conferences and forums, to select a well-served area to set up a factory that will create jobs and market.
Nonetheless, infrastructure is not a panacea for all developmental shortcomings. Rather, it should be viewed as a basis, which, if harnessed well and backed by incentives and pro-enterprise measures, is bound to transform lives. President AbdiWeli Mohamed A. Gaas’ ambitious plan of building three international airports in his first three years in office is something admirable and good strategy for a region that lacks a viable aviation industry. If he achieves this mega plan, I think he will go down in history as one of the best leaders that emerged from Somalia in a long time. The first airport is now in its final phase in the commercial city of Bossaso. When it’s finished, it will have a couple of runways, good modern tower, and internationally accepted standards of aviation that will allow big planes to land easily. This will enable people to jostle and do business easily since cargo planes can land, transit and connect the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula.
If Gaas does succeed to furnish and upgrade Garowe airport to international airport standards, and the same goes for Galkacyo, these projects will generate revenue for the government, create thousands of jobs for millions of unemployed youth across Puntland and Somalia and will enable the Somali diaspora a chance to fly back home without having to pass through Dubai and other unfriendly neighboring countries. I thought Gaas was bluffing but when I was in Bossaso, I had the chance to visit the site where the airport is constructed and seeing how the Chinese are working round the clock, this really amazed me. Those workers had serious work ethics incomparable to none. I wish they are given all mega projects in the future. I have also heard that there would be a construction of a big university in Sanaag which will cater for more than twenty thousand students. This university will be equipped fully with state of the art technological facilities and highly rated faculty.
Furthermore, there will be construction of major roads connecting major Puntland towns. For instance, the road between Garowe and Galkacyo, which is in a sorrow state and the Ceel Dahir highway that links Bossaso with Ceerigabo are potential good projects. If Gaas sees through then he will confirm my suspicion of him being a lucky person always favored by circumstances–from a little known don who entered Somali politics during Sheikh Sherif’s transitional government and then rose through ranks in a short period by becoming the prime minister of Somalia. Gaas has achieved an unprecedented feet and fame in that short period. He subsequently vied for the Somali presidency and lost to the current president Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud. When President Mohamoud failed to reinstate him as a PM, Gaas came back home and embarked on a plan that shocked almost every clear thinking person in Somalia: Running for regional presidency. Had he lost that regional election?
Abdiweli runs his government in manner that is different to past presidents. He is easy-going, a good listener, courteous, accessible and down to earth. Some mistakenly think he is a bit elitist and arrogant, but he is a new brand of a leader who is well-admired in the region. He has maintained a policy of non-confrontation, reconciliation and fair distribution of government positions. However, he has placed his main priorities and focus on infrastructure and urged people not to expect more from donors. His message is loud and clear: Unless we Somalis take responsibilities for our problems, expect nothing from outside. We can’t achieve anything tangible and our hope of statehood will be a mere pipe dream.
There is a proposal of building and upgrading the port of Bossaso, which needs to be a high-tech port to cater for large ships, and a new port in Garacad to cater for south and central Somalia, Somali inhabited region in Ethiopia and building a tax collection point and weight bridge at the border town near Galdagob to ease logistics, clearance and revenue collection. If these projects see the light of the day, Puntland will fully have self-dependency, prosperity, and will reduce tremendously militancy and the mass emigration of youth who perish in the high searching for better future in Europe. We have to coherently decipher the mere importance of fixing our infrastructure is in itself is a step forward on our path toward the promised land of development.
Perhaps, the only challenge we face in our rush to upgrade and build infrastructure is efficiency in the allocation of resource. We sometimes allocate too much to infrastructure that ends up eating into what we would have invested in the social infrastructure, which deals with immediate needs of the poor. And, also equal development in the region is imperative and vital as some areas have not even seen an iota of development in the past seventy years of Puntland’s existence. Nonetheless, with more and more parts of developing, it is incumbent upon Puntland governments to rise up to the challenge and fashion policies that will encourage good security to foster enterprise. Contrary to popular opinion, we do not have to court foreigners to come and invest in our villages and create jobs. We can also create jobs by encouraging local homegrown businesses to thrive while leveraging off the superior infrastructure that we are fortunate to have. Creating the right circumstances for enterprise to thrive is critical. It empowers citizens to build wealth, and to realize their full aspirations.
Mohamed M. Abdi Gescade
Email:[email protected]
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Mohamed M. Abdi Gescade is based in Garowe, Puntland.
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