Somali Parliament Apologizes To Finance Minister For “Wrong Report”

The Deputy Speaker of the Somali Lower House has apologized to the finance ministry for controversial report tabled and debated on Saturday.

Hon. Mahad Awad apologized to the finance ministry on what he described as mistakes committed by house finance committee.

“ I want to apologize in that debate was tabled in the house without first submitted to the house business committee,”  he said.

Awad added that there is no USD 40 Million missing from 2019 budget as previously claimed by some members of the parliament and finance committee.

“ The parliament didn’t say USD 40 M is unaccounted for,  so we want to apologise to the people and ministry of finance,”

He added that since the debate by the finance ministry that created social media uproar in the country did not pass the right procedure via the house it can’t be tabled again.

Finance MinisterDr. Abdirahman Duale cut short his travel and appeared before the house on Saturday together with deputy central bank chairperson to defend the allegations made against his ministry.

The meeting was also marred by a division between the members of the finance committee that originally tabled the debate.

They claimed more than 20 million USD that was donated by the Saudi government was unaccounted for in the 2019 budget, acclaim rubbished by the minister.