By Adan H Iman, Los Angeles

The newly elected members of the Lower House will begin their first serious work when they receive the proposed budget for the year 2006. It is not known whether the budget for next year will be similar to the one for the prior year. There have been some speculations that President Rayale may reshuffle his cabinet by reducing the number of ministers. If that happens it may have an impact on the kind of budget that is to be adopted.

Members of Parliament from the three parties share similar ideological beliefs. Additionally, their constituencies have identical economic lives. They all represent voters who are predominantly unemployed except for a small percentage who are shop-owners, haberdashers, pastoralists, subsistence farmers and workers for the government, housing, restaurants and other small occupations. Among members of parliament, therefore, it is difficult to see how they can have serious difference over the budget.

The only group who had a clear motive to derail consensus on the budget in parliament are the ministers. The 2005 budget was developed in a way that put relatively large monetary resources into the hands of the ministers, who had the discretion to use it as they see fit without any accountability. The ministers may find the prospect of the opposition-dominated Lower House having the power to change, delete or add items into the new budget to be threat and they may encourage UDUB MPs to defend their interests.

The national 2005 budget reveals that its priority was based more on providing financial power to individuals than addressing the needs of the people. Ali Gulaid, a CPA based in San Jose , California , provides the only version of the budget available to the diaspora communities. Since the administration, to the best of my knowledge, has not contested the figures provided by Mr. Gulaid, it is fair to assume these numbers are authentic. The information in the budget is not supposed to be closely held secret but widely available to the public, which has not been the case.

The budget is to the tune of about $22 million. It is very minuscule but that does not make it any less important than if were a large budget for not being properly managed. The budget has two glaring deficiencies:

-- It omits significant information, which are the Sources of Revenues. All budgets of governmental organizations must enumerate all Revenue Sources and amounts anticipated from each source. Somalilanders would like to know how much money is coming to the treasury. How much is being collected from Berbera Port ? How much from Tug Wagaleh? How much from Egal Airport in Hargeisa? And so on. Certain Revenue Sources can be off budget, or omitted from the budget, provided the funds from that source are dedicated for specific purposes. For instance fees charged to airline passengers holding foreign passports can be restricted towards the operation and improvement of Somaliland airports. If this was such case, this Revenue Source can be off budget. But since there is no special purpose Revenue Sources, all Sources of Revenues must be on budget and fully disclosed in the budget.

-- The other defect is a structural one. The salaries of the President and Vice-President and cost of operation of their offices takes about 10% of total budget. About 46% of the budget is appropriated to the armed forces, security services, police and custodial services while only $1,062,928 is appropriated to education and only $650,890 for Health. The budget is very small dwarfed by the needs of the people and it is not going to be easy finding a reasonable balance between these competing, important priorities.

As we approach the end of the year, parliament will start the budget hearing any time (In future years, it is important the budget calendar be pushed forward, may be to as early as September or October, so that lawmakers have sufficient time to study the document.) If members of parliament follow their conscience and the interest of their constituencies, they must have a unanimous position on the budget.

One positive quality of the new Lower House MPs of the three parties is they are highly educated group. Many of them have university degrees in the belts.

Let us all wish them for the best as they start fulfilling their obligation to the people who elected them.

ahiman2@aol.com