Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre who is in office for less than six months is marred by nepotism and favoritism in terms of power and job opportunity distribution.
PM Hamza has recently appealed to the European Union to provide a capacity support fund injection as a salary wage for additional senior staff at the office of the prime minister.
After a long push-and-pull process, the EU initiated the process and later agreed to pay the salaries of three senior staff who are already working at the OPM.
Senior advisor of Politics and Projects Coordination, Ahmed Ulah, senior advisor of Foreign Relations, Hodan Osman, and Mohamed Barre who is among the top officials at the OPM, are the three persons the PM endorsed.
They anticipate a payday as they recently signed 5-figure salary contracts by the EU.
This does not mean the aforementioned senior staff at OPM will lose their previous jobs as they served as senior advisors to the OPM, posts that pay almost $10k per month.
All the staff endorsed by the PM are his clan associates and close kin, therefore, violating the current clan power and jobs opportunities sharing system in Somalia.
Aside from these high posts at the OPM, PM Hamza also fired other staff at his office serving in mid and low ranks and later replaced them with his fellow clan people.
This can of nepotism induces mistrust among the Somali clan and could spur tension in the troubled politics of Somalia.
Prime Minister Hamza has recently ordered the immediate removal of the gov civil servants who are outside the country, asserting that they are attending their assigned offices on a day-to-day basis.
Following the emerge of the Corona Virus pandemic, most of the civil servants were instructed to work from home, a recent global trend that was aimed at ameliorating the spread of the deadly disease.
Given the apparent existence of the Corona Vuris threat, Prime Minister Hamza’s order has been dubbed an attempt to snare all the gov sources and jobs and reserve the top echelons for family members and clan associates.
