WILL THE NEW SWS CABINET BE FRUITFUL OR FILLING GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE.

South West State (SWS) regional government came into effect on 19^th Dec.2018 following a controversial interference from the federal government at Mogadishu where Mukhtar Robow was struck out his name from the ballot by the election committee following his arrest and still remains under the custody of the federal government of Somalia.

The way the SWS election happened had raised significant questions with international community questioning the process and the aftermath of the election which triggered civil unrest and wide scale demonstrations in Baidoa that caused partial shutdown of all business activities in Baidoa then later the arrest of significant youth members among the demonstrators, this had attracted the attention of international community and the UN secretary General for Somalia, Mr. Nicholas Haysom then raised numerous concerns on the Federal Government interference addressed to the UN Security Council.

On Jan. 1, The Somali federal government expelled U.N envoy Nicholas Haysom with "persona non grata" while ordering him to leave the country just 4 months after taking his post as the U.N. secretary-general's special representative. This triggered a significant concern from Multi-Donor nations that supported the Joint Police Program (JPP) which they said will withdraw supporting in SWS.

Post-Election Situation.

Despite the general point views of the International community and some of the SWS population having reservations on the election process yet the newly elected president had been open and engaging with the respective clan elders or person who had concerns and in working on the harmonization of a unified SWS government. Key achievement of president Abdiaziz Laftagareen is and still in progress;

-          The reconciliation process his government had engaged and the numerous meeting he had personally with some of clans that had deeper reservations of his election as the regional state president of SWS; his openness and willing to accept the concept of reconciliation opens a flat for clan elders to express their grievance and in one particular post meeting interview, President Laftagareen confirmed that he will work on all differences and ensure inclusive government for all SWS populations’ representation.

-          Partial acceptance of the locals in SWS state, the president had been a good charismatic individual and no doubt has a good support from the youth in Baidoa and across SWS state, some few things about him is his openness and unlike his predecessor, we have previously seen him paying visit to hospital patient after there had been an explosion in Baidoa and he came all the way from Mogadishu with medical supplies and just looking into the social-media; you can come across hundreds of youth engaging with him and having selfies, quite a reflection of easy going personality of the president.

Appointment of SWS cabinet.

On 2nd Feb.2019, President Abdiaziz had appointed his first cabinet of 10 ministers then followed by un expected resignation of 2 of the first round ministerial positions appointment; Mr. Ali Aden Maalim who was appointed as the Minister of Environment and Wildlife has announced his resignation following the resignation of Abdisalam Abdullahi Yalahow catoosh who was appointed as the deputy minister of Transport.

The immediate resignations of cabinet members are quite worrying and reflects dissatisfaction among some of the clans in SWS but this is two sided factors leading to their resignation first being clan pressure where certain clans don’t feel that they deserve the ministry being appointed to and secondly on personal reasons for resigning from the cabinet.

Looking into the depth and strength of the cabinet being formed by President Abdiaziz Laftagareen, its quite promising considering on the youth representation at ministerial posts and this motivates the youth’s wiliness in engaging in government works but again there some loopholes which wasn’t thought off in the set up process and these includes.

-          Irrelevant posting:  Lets break it down, I am not insinuating of capacity gap rather lets look from relevance perspective, I have a huge respect for the all the cabinet members appointed and due to be sworn in but if you closely look at some of the ministerial post; surely there is a gap of irrelevance and as much they are all educated and qualified members which is credit to SWS but again some of the roles assigned to some members and their background expertise doesn’t match which of course creates a gap and it will result for the line minister to miss the first 6 months in office in mastering and learning what his or her ministerial duties entail. Thus; on flip side has immense effect to the wider population of SWS who needs immediate service delivery.

Foreseeable challenges to the SWS.

Cabinet level: The newly appointed cabinet will inherit unbalanced ministries in terms of capacity and operations and worth mentioning the previous SWS government under Sh. Sharif leadership had tried and left some footprint institutions to take over but the challenge that all the relevant ministries wouldn’t inherit a full functioning ministry thus will kind of force the incoming ones to start from scratch, this will further delay service delivery and which the SWS population can’t afford.

Appointment of Director Generals: Despite the full appointment of the cabinet body and the fact that some clans still have reservation over the president ministers’ appointment methodology; it’s likely that that DGs might be compromised as to balance the equation and convince some of the clan elders’ with grievances and this is where the biggest gap might arise and it will have immense impact on the new cabinet’s performance. Look into a worst case scenario where both the minister, Deputy minister and the DG end up being all new and there is work to be done.

Conclusion.

Cabinet appointment done and in place what next?, The most significant gap across all SWS as regional government is funding gap for the government institutions and looking into the revenue status of the state isn’t compatible to the government budget with no reliable sources of income and revenue channels which are not all effective hence if the SWS doesn’t come up with clear and pragmatic means of income then the whole or most of the cabinet body will end up filling the table rather than making real time difference in serving the SWS population.