District/Local Decentralisation in Somali Region: Its problems and issues

In this paper, I will try to discuss about local/district decentralization process in Somali Region, its problems and issues. Using different sources of information, I have tried to get up to date information from the Region. I am going to share with you my views and understanding of the problems of local decentralization process in the Region. Although I am not in the Region/ country, but I have daunting interest to share with you the prevalent problems in that respect. Thus, this paper aims to initiate debate on the ongoing local/district decentralization in the Region, its flaws and major issues. I will be very much pleased if I get a response from intellectuals from the Region particularly those working in the Region to exchange ideas and understanding and shade light on the prospective solution for this unbending problem. So we can contribute and give an input for the Region who is ever in charge of thereby creating working local decentralization and governance at the district level owned by the local people.

Decentralization being a global phenomenon is widely practiced in many parts of the world and is getting its moment in the political order of the world. Decentralisation is a new to Ethiopia and Somali Region in particular. Although, the constitution of the Country (Ethiopia) clearly states that the Regional States have autonomous in the sphere of political and social aspects. It is advocates that power and resources will be devolved to lower unit of the government structure. Lately, in 2003, the Regional Government embarked unprecedented intra-regional decentralisation of which resources and power to some extent were devolved to the districts. Although, the process deserved to be well-thought, it did not happen in that way. As some argue that the local decentralisation in the Region was more an ad-hoc and characterised political project of which the quasi-regional politicians used to convince the Central Government that they are inline with the Federal Government district decentralisation agenda. Decentralisation as concept takes in several forms and trajectories. The forms of decentralisation being de-concentration, delegation and devolution or administrative, political and fiscal. The de-concentration and delegation mainly deals with the distributing or spreading the responsibility of decision making and planning among different levels of organisation or semi-autonomous bodies. On the other hand, devolution or in other words political decentralisation is an arrangement or a process of transferring decision making authority to semi-autonomous local government that have statutory status. In this respect, the local / district governments have legally binding boundaries and elected local councils that manage its socio-economic affairs (EU, 2007:15). As argued some authors, the trajectory of decentralisation is important for the success of the process. This means that there must be an arrangement of which type of decentralisation comes first and its sequence. In Somali Region, the Regional Government undertook full-fledged decentralisation process thereby implementing political, fiscal and administrative at the same time without sequencing it. In this regard, the Region did design neither decentralisation strategy nor capacity building program for the emerging local administrative bodies. The decentralisation process was more of verbal and driven by the whims of the top officials of the Region. Somali Region instead of tailoring specific strategy and policy in pursuing intra-regional decentralisation, it is pursued imitative policy of other Regions’ decentralisation strategy championed by the Federal Government particularly the Ministry of Federal Affairs.

Somali Region being most marginalised and impoverished Region through consecutive Ethiopian Governments was lacking all basic socio-economic infrastructures. In all most all districts in the Region have no effective communication and telecommunication service. The electricity is absent in all districts except a few towns in the Region. The road network and road transport was also scant. Without considering this appalling socio-economic condition in the Region, the Regional Government purposefully embarked local decentralisation in the Region. Moreover, there was no strategy for the local decentralisation. However, this can imply either there was leadership capacity problem to lead the process or it was a purposeful process to foil to empower local people and sustain power at the Regional level. However, the basic question is what is the status of the ill- designed district decentralisation in the Region.

Local/district decentralisation in the Region has achieved not more than creating administrative skeleton at the local level. The elected local councils in the districts have less power and authority to manage their socio-economic affairs. Provision of basic services such as health, education and water supply in the districts is weak or absent. In response with this problem, the Federal Government and Regional Government assigned to some districts what they call ‘technical advisors. These advisors were drawn from other Regions such as Amara, Tigrey and others. These have negative and positive effects as well. For their positive effect, they have contained the corruption and financial miss-use practices particularly at the Regional level. On the other hand, in the districts they are creating more problems than contributing good as they have no knowledge about the socio-cultural of the society and have stereotype about the culture of the inhabitant. Furthermore, using the instability factor in some parts of the Region, some local/district government subjugate its constituent in order to escape from questioning and demanding accountability for their failure of all aspects of social life. In the districts, local people don’t participate in the process of making decisions that affect the day today life. Local administrative body does not represent the interest of the people rather are more comfortable with up-ward accountability to the Regional Government. To add more, local institutions and working procedures at the district is very weak and non-existent.

To sum up, local decentralisation in the Region is at the edge of failure. Due to lack of strategy by the Regional Government, local decentralisation in the Region has failed to produce effective local governance at the district level. There is administrative skeleton in the districts but there is no working local government system at the district level. Second, there is no accountably at all. The local administration instead of being accountable to their constituent, they are accountable to the Regional government officials. Due to lack of working local/district government structure in the districts, there are no effective basic services deliveries at the district level. Only limited number of districts in the Region provides public services to the people. A significant number of school age children in the Region are not attending in the schools. Basic human and animal health service is missing in all most all districts in the Region. Drinkable and safe water in the districts is inadequate as result waterborne disease is common at the local level. Corruption and maladministration is mushrooming and widespread in the districts. The local government officials have taken the foot steps of their god father politicians at the Region in-terms of looting public resources and abusing their power entrusted by the people. At the worst, the Regional Government act contra-local decentralisation by disempowering district administration and retaking some of its responsibilities such as procuring services and micro-construction projects.

For revitalization of local/district decentralisation, the Regional Government should review its practices and ‘verbal strategy’ towards local decentralisation thereby designing local decentralisation and capacity building strategy for the districts. On the basis of development status of the districts, the Region should cluster the districts and design decentralisation strategy on the basis of clustered districts. Allocation of sufficient budget for the districts is vital to operationalise decentralisation at the district level. Provision of basic service at the local level is important to win the heart of the local people; hence local/district government should be able to deliver basic social services. Effective down-word accountability at the local/ districts level is necessary for the success of the process. The local government should be accountable to its constituents not to the Regional Government this will lead to improved and working local governance. Finally, technical advisors alone won’t bring a meaningful change in the districts. Therefore, the idle young professionals from the Region should be used for this purpose. These skilled man-powers have knowledge and understand more than others about the tacit socio-cultural of the society. But, one thing should be clear an illiterate district administrator won’t allow these young professionals to effective render their services as he sees them as threat, so to use these un-taped resources there is a need of restructuring political structure of the districts.

By Aden Jama
E-mail: Adenjama170@gmail.com