Italy says it will fund operations of key Somali government ministries, police salaries

Italy to fund Somali government ministries

NAIROBI, Kenya — Italy will fund the operations of key ministries of the fragile Somali government battling a long-running Islamic insurgency, the Italian foreign minister said on Thursday.

Italy, a former colonial ruler of Somalia, also will train an anti-terrorism police unit and a coast guard, and pay the salaries of police officers, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told journalists, announcing what represents a major boost for Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed’s government.

Italy is doing this because Ahmed’s government “is the best option. We have no alternative but to support this government,” Frattini said after daylong meetings in Nairobi with Ahmed and Kenyan leaders that centered on Somalia.

Frattini said Italy will fund the daily operations of Somalia’s foreign affairs, finance and national security ministries. He did not say how much this will cost or give other details.

Ahmed, a moderate Islamic leader, is battling rival Islamists trying to overthrow his government as he attempts to rebuild Somalia’s bureaucracy and institutions that collapsed during the past 19 years of anarchy and chaos that engulfed the Horn of Africa nation.

His government is unable to collect taxes that could be used to fund government work because it controls only a few blocks of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and Islamic insurgents control much of southern Somalia, the region where the capital is located.

Under a U.N. Development Program-supervised plan, officers have been trained to form a Somali police force, but some have left because they are not paid regularly. An unknown number have joined the insurgents who offer regular pay.

Frattini also said that a number of donors have not honored pledges they made nine months ago to fund Somalia’s police and paramilitary force and an African Union peacekeeping mission. He did not name the donors or give other details, but his statement echoes one made in November by Nicholas Bwakira, then the AU envoy to Somalia.

Bwakira, who finished his term in November, said donors had only paid 30 percent of the commitments made in Belgium in April, 2009. At the time donors pledged more than $250 million to cover the annual price of an expanded AU force and to bolster Somalia’s fledgling security forces.

Somalia has not had an effective government since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.