Speaker of Somaliland parliament House of Representatives Mr Abdirahman Erro

By somalilandtimes network

Hargeysa, Somaliland, February 25, 2006 – Mr. Abdirahman Erro, speaker of Somaliland parliament House of Representatives was interviewed by Somaliland Times last Tuesday. Excerpt of this interview follows:

SL Times: Do you have any information on the president’s plans to travel abroad soon?’

Mr Erro: ‘No I haven’t been told, either by the president or anyone else for that matter and it is the first that I have heard of this’.

SL Times: ‘Do you think that it is right for the president to leave the country again after he has only been back in the country for less than one month from his long two months stay in Europe ?’

Mr Erro: ‘The president has every right to travel abroad whenever it’s necessary, and if this is the case I am sure that the president will inform of his plans to travel again abroad to the appropriate state institutions.’

SL Times: Despite the parliament’s insistence that the cabinet be downsized, yet the same number appear in the government’s budget currently before parliament. Will you deny them allocations to force the president into downsizing?

Mr Erro: ‘The government’s budget proposal for the year 2006 is currently in the hands of parliament (the Treasury Committee of the house of representatives), who are at present preparing a report on the budget and will in the coming days submit it to the house for debate and we in the house will adhere to the report’s findings and subsequent guidelines set by the treasury committee, and only then can we make the appropriate action or steps needed by the house to take in relation to the budget when its motion debate comes up shortly for parliament’s approval’.

SL Times: ‘You and a number of your parliament colleagues recently had a closed door private meeting with the president at his mansion, can you shed some light on this meeting, what was discussed and the outcome of this meeting with President Rayale?’

Mr Erro: ‘This meeting we had with the president had a number of agendas, briefly the main points discussed with the president were the need for the government and parliament to cooperate and work with each other, but the overall important issue we discussed with the president was the need for the president to execute his promise that he would downsize his cabinet ministers down to a smaller and efficient cabinet. As you (SL Times), already have mentioned the current number of ministries in the country have their allocations included in this years budget by the government and if the government downsizes its cabinet ministers some ministries will become obsolete and some will be amalgamated into a single ministry and this will leave a substantial amount of money for where it is most needed like health, education, livestock and agriculture etc. And we believe when the time comes in parliament that we shall debate on which ministries in the budget deserve priority to the meagre resources we have available and which don’t’.

SL Times: ‘Whom will you meet when you and the deputy speaker of the Guurti, Mr Sheekh Nuh visit Britain?’

Mr Ero: ‘Firstly, (God Willing) we intend to meet honoured members of the Welsh national assembly and prominent officials from the British government, UK and international aid organisations as well as the Somaliland Diaspora in Britain .

Source: Somaliland Times

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