The Practice of Public Sector Governance in Somalia: The Case of Puntland

Abstract

Governance is the way in which government uses the power in the process of pursuing the country’s economy and socio-political issues. Good governance is being regarded as the major steering engine in development. Bearing in mind the importance of good Governance implementation in the public sector, the main purpose of study was to examine the practice of Governance in public sector institutions in Somalia in the case of Puntland. The study was conducted in randomly selected 10 public institutions in the two towns of Galkio and Garowe. The data were collected by using mixed approaches from 158 respondents through self-administered questionnaires and key informant interviews. Questionnaires were distributed to a sample of convenience selected employee of the studied institutions. Six key informants were also purposively interviewed. The gathered quantitative data was analyzed through descriptive statistics and Chi-square while qualitative one is transcribed and analyzed by using both quoting and narration forms. The result indicated lack of leadership commitment, Clan representation in the public bureaucracy, weak justice system, and corruption as major challenges. Based on the result from an eight employed good governance indicators, namely Efficiency and effectiveness, transparency, responsiveness, participation, accountability, rule of low, equity and consensus the studied public institutions were not found effective in any of these indicators thus the practice of governance was found poor. On the other hand, the study found the improving situation of the country from the experience of civil war, untapped natural resources, available educated citizens and established necessary institutions of Good governance as major potential opportunities. Finally, improving police force and justice sector, taking anti corruption measures, teaching governance for the citizens, and combating tribal mentality were recommended.

Keywords: Governance, Good governance, Public sector, Implementation, Challenge, Somalia, Puntland