A dying society- Somalia.

[Xaawotaako]

Things I have observed during my time in Mogadishu. We have no ministry of education as we once had. Many children don’t go to school. There are private schools that some individuals open (without any guidelines) and they cost a lot of money for already struggling families. We have many kids addicted to glue. Criminals roam the streets and it’s wild out there. The president is a thief and recently had hundreds of millions of dollars frozen in Swiss bank. Everyone is trying to screw you out of your money somehow. But the saddest thing of all is seeing the young people growing up in Somalia without education. All this is because of greed and corruption. There are a lot of new buildings that have gone up in recent years, but the place is filthy, garbage littered everywhere. We use to have robust farming industry and good water systems. But now all that has been destroyed and we import our fruits and veggies.
Woman are dying giving birth, because we have some random Egyptian dr operating privately at the hospital and no ministry of health to look into what is going on in the hospitals. Somalis need to really need to open their eyes and look to the future. There is a lot of potential but if the young people have no opportunity for education, the future of Somalia is doomed.

 

[Devilsadvocate]

The people of Xamar have completely lost hope in the FGS. Whether it was Farmaajo yesterday or HSM today, they know the government and the politicians are all out for their own pockets. It’s sad when I go back and speak to locals, they just want a competent government and to have their basic necessities met. It's so jarring when I see all the igu sawir these politicians put out.

 

[DivineMartial]

I'm still shocked with the kids sniffing glue. I've only seen this phenomenon in Mogadishu only though

 

[Pastoralist]

The people of Xamar have completely lost hope in the FGS. Whether it was Farmaajo yesterday or HSM today, they know the government and the politicians are all out for their own pockets. It’s sad when I go back and speak to locals, they just want a competent government and to have their basic necessities met. It's so jarring when I see all the igu sawir these politicians put out.

Farmaajo himself sought to bring public ownership of institutions which were private in Somalia like schools, hospitals, and social housing. Which shouldn’t be monopolized by an individual.

he launched the first education curriculum in the country since 1991, since then there was no uniform system, just private entities in the country making kids pay, there still is by a large margin. Though his work was a start.

Somali President launches over one million books for primary schools

MOGADISHU (HOL) -Somali President Mohamed Farmaajo Saturday unveiled over one million primary school books targeting 300,000 pupils countrywide.

www.hiiraan.com

 

[Idilinaa]

The swiss bank story wasn't true, it was published and taken down by a Somaliland propaganda news site, haven't seen confirmations about it. But there was a report about 60 million transferred from a Turkey oil company into a Bank account co-owned by HSM daughter and son that was frozen in Djibouti.

I wouldn't say Somalia is a dying society. Quite on the contrary it's in many ways a thriving society fueled by the private sector activity and growing local and diaspora investment. That in of itself shows you that the problem doesn't lie on the Somali people , who are trying to do what they can to navigate around the political situation. Showing that Somali businesses are very capable and motivated to improve the country.

The dilemma here is that we can't fix everything privately. Education and Health Care shouldn't be supported by private citizens and businesses, it should be supported by government. It should all be public and accessible and affordable to everyone. Heck even most of the security services seems to be private as well, which is also big no no.

The private sector even picked up the slack of paving roads, cleaning up many of the districts and fixing old sewage/drainage systems


But this is also not very sustainable, it should be the public sectors job to constantly fund the maintenance and repair of these infrastructure services.

The public sector especially in Mogadishu, FGS is weak and almost none existent in terms of function and the reason being is that it's an externally imposed government that was put in place by the UN after US/Ethiopia outsted the locally derived ICU government. It's corrupt and weak precisely because outsiders fund it, protect it and prop it. Local Somalis have no accountability mechanism, we are not it's funding source and they never selected or voted these individuals into office. These are two mechanisms that keep a government compliant and efficient, that's missing.

But Somalia is in a good position now to reform and change things, i said it before our obstacles have lessened compared to the past. The West and foreign powers are losing interest in Somalia. The U.S. and EU are reducing their involvement because they see no long-term benefit. Ethiopia is internally struggling, and its ability to dominate Somalia's politics is weakening. Foreign-backed governments collapse when their backers lose interest and when their funding source dries up.

Funding wise(due to local business activity and diaspora) we have the capital to fund development but also fund a government to replace FGS. The time to build Somali-led governance is now, while foreign influence is declining.

Replacing FGS in Mogadishu with a Somali led governance will have a ripple effect in my opinion to create a wider regional integration, its like a center piece in the equation.

 

[amii.001x]

We need a young fresh face in power & transformation of governance. I’m extremely tired of these old people and their generational tribal hatred. The youth has to be main the focus of our country

 

[Inquisitive_]

We have a 10 year window to turn the ship around, otherwise it's over and we won't exist as a nation or people once we (millennials) reach retirement age.

The boomers are retired and dying, Gen X will be following them this decade, both these generations make up over 90% of the remittance money sent to Somalia from all over the world.

Your looking at 30% GDP wiped out with nothing to replace it in as little as a decade, add to this the global foreign aid cuts that funds the military & parliament, and it will be catastrophic blood bath.

No plan exists, both dahabshiil and hormuud will be hard hit and deservedly so, since there monopolistic practices & short sightedness has contributed to the destruction of Somalia.

These conglomerates couldn't even solve basic things that could have made them far richer whilst helping the country industrialise, like solving the energy problem, so they won't have to import everything, this would have started a massive manufacturing boom, it's literally the biggest problem holding the country back.

Instead they are competing in the honey, milk, sesame oil businesses with other locals to wipe them out.

Our Achilles heel is energy cost, we have the highest in the world, it's the single issue if resolved it will address 80% of our problems.

Agriculture - can't have cold storage warehouses or silos due to energy cost, so much of our food goes to waste as a result, can't feed ourselves much less export, much of the advancement in percision farming have the same limitations.

Infrastructure - to significantly reduce cost of build we need local factories to produce much of the materials needed to build our roads which is made impossible due to cost of energy, ramifications for this is gigantic, affects every sector, even our food rots in trucks during rainy seasons because of our poor roads, can't even enjoy fresh camel milk from the country side.

Manufacturing/factories - all made impossible for the same reasons, so we have to rely on imports and handing over our hard earned $$$.

When I was in Mogadishu, during the summer month of April I was paying £300 a month on energy cost for our house alone, literally only additions were two aircon units that was on 12 hours a day, that alone made up the majority of that bill, criminal.