Somalia's Government Says It Will always pay salaries

[Coeus]

Somalia’s government will begin paying soldiers’ January salaries, a week after it completed payment of December wages, as it seeks to boost security in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation.

“As the government takes care of you, we ask that you increase your efforts in defending the country from enemies both from within and from without,” Defense Minister Abdulhakeem Mohamud Haji said in an e-mailed statement dated Jan. 10 from Mogadishu, the capital.

Somalia’s Western-backed government has been battling insurgents, including the al-Shabaab militia that has pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda, since 2007. The country hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the ouster of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

Most of southern and central Somalia has been seized by the insurgents, while the government, led by President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, controls only parts of Mogadishu.

Prior to the payment of December salaries, soldiers hadn’t been paid for seven months, said Colonel Hassan Muse, a government army commander. Members of the government armed forces are paid $100 a month and are provided with two meals a day, he said in a phone interview today.

“A number of soldiers left the job and some of them went overseas as refugees, while others are joining the insurgents to make a living,” Muse said. “I am optimistic that if the government continues to pay the soldiers on a regular basis, security will improve.”