Judiciary suffers collateral damage in Beileh’s budget defense

Finance Minister Abdirahman Beileh’s robust defense of his ministry’s execution of the 2018 budget in parliament Saturday not only took a swipe at Budget Committee but also left behind some collateral damage.

In dismissing the Committee report as ‘full of falsehoods and propaganda’, Beileh said the contents of the report and the manner in which the Committee handled the report ‘which ended up on the internet before being tabled in the House’ could, ‘in other parts of the amount to prosecution’.

Respite, Beileh told the Committee, ‘We don’t have courts’.

“The issues you have written here are baseless, full of lies and imaginary. In other parts of the world, this would have ended up in court. I can tell you it could have been a court case, but, do we have courts? The clan is our only court, isn’t it?”

Budget Committee breached Standing Orders in compiling report-deputy speaker

President Mohamed Farmaajo appointed Bashe Yusuf Ahmed as Chief Justice in June to lead a transformation agenda and revamp the judiciary which has for a long time remained one of the least established arms of government.

Beileh tore into the report findings which had put him on the spot over $20 million the Committee said could not be accounted for. But Central Bank deputy governor Maryam Abdullahi said the government in September requisitioned $5 million and the balance is still intact.