The government of the Republic of Somaliland handed over four million Us Dollars to the National Electoral Commission (NEC).
“The international community is not obliged by law to support us in national affairs. It did that because it wanted to. It is, however, obligatory on the reigning government to see to it that nationally monumental issues are implemented as they should be. The upcoming election is one such issue,” Zamzam Abdi Adan, Somaliland Minister for Finance said at a short ceremony held at the Presidency for the handover of funds.
Minister Zamzam stated that this preliminary sum was meant to complete the voter registration exercise started.
Mohamoud Hashi Abdi, Presidency Minister, stated that the 4million was the share of the government of forecasted costs of the voter registration and election costs of which the international community was to play a part.
“If the international community decides to continue supporting the election process,” he said “this amount would cover the government portion of allocated funds. If it doesn’t,” he added, “it was incumbent on the government to come up with the rest of the allocated costs on its own”.
Abdulkadir Eiman, Chairmen of NEC, thanked the government for seeing to it that the democratic process underway was not derailed by a dearth of funds, adding that a Commission delegation was departing on Sunday for Nairobi for a follow up meeting with international partners in Somaliland’s democratic trek towards a pluralistic, accountable government voted on to office through a transparent electoral process.
The EU, UK and other partners in the process decided to show their displeasure of two separate elections for the parliament and the presidency by withholding 65% of the electoral cost for both elections that they pledged earlier. NEC has been shuttling between the government and the donors since then.
This initial contribution of the government is expected to restore frayed confidences a little. It is not, however, clear if the donors would insist on direct interventions given that the elections cannot be held concurrently and that, it is – more likely than not – that the presidential elections would inevitably be postponed for several months as both UCID and Waddani have yet to hold general assembly conventions to ratify candidates and members of their central committees as stipulated by law.
