Speaker forced to postpone session as Parliament yet again fails to reach quorum

GOOBJOOG NEWS|MOGADISHU: The Somali Parliament yet again failed to reach the required quorum required to take legislative action after three quarters of the members of both houses failed to turn up for Sunday’s meeting scheduled to discuss the country’s 2022 budget.

Sheikh Adan Mohamed Nur (Adan Madobe), who seemed to be running out of patience, blasted the lawmakers who failed to turn up saying they would rather “sleep at home rather than show up and fulfill their national duty.” Madobe added that Parliament would finalize the rules of procedure on Monday and called on all lawmakers to attend without fail.

In the first joint session slated for June 2, a paltry 70 out of 329 lawmakers showed up for the first reading after which the meeting was canceled due to lack of quorum, while in the second joint session slated for Sunday,  only 19 lawmakers from the Upper House and 36 from the Lower House showed up for the important session.

Before Somalia’s parliament can take any legislative action,  it requires at least two-thirds of its members — that is, 184 MPS — to be present before Parliament can take legislative action.

The snail pace performance of Parliament is expected to negatively affect the performance of the institution as several important legislations need to be passed especially now that the country is going through unprecedented times, with drought and insecurity being some of the issues that require Parliament’s undivided attention.