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Somalia Urban Subsistence and Government Employment
The Somali government and its officials collected grants and
bribes from foreign governments and taxes on internal trade that
provided substantial wealth to the ruling elite. As of July 1991,
domestic trade in the south for the most part had been disrupted.
Only small quantities of goods such as fruit, sugarcane, and
charcoal moved from the villages to the towns, in return for
cornmeal and, since 1988, guns and ammunition. At a national
level, armed trucks traveled from Jilib, on the Jubba River, or
Chisimayu, to Mogadishu, carrying from the Jubba River area
agricultural products such as mangoes and sesame and returning
with corn, wheat, refined sugar, and diesel fuel. International
trade by sea was at a virtual standstill, but goods were smuggled
across the border with Kenya in return for qat primarily. In the
north at the same period, the anarchic situation since 1988 had
severely curtailed agricultural trade, particularly livestock
exports. In addition, those farmers in areas where planting was
potentially feasible in 1991, such as around Erigabo and Boorama,
northwest of Horgeysa, lacked sorghum, corn, and vegetable seeds,
as well as tools, and were hindered by the presence of minefields
in many locations. Internationally, goods were smuggled across
the Ethiopian border, largely in exchange for qat.
The funds collected in the past on internal trade also
provided below-subsistence wages to a number of urban Somalis
because for much of the 1980s the government served as the
employer of last resort of all secondary-school graduates. Using
these revenues, the government also sustained an army that was in
continual warfare beginning in 1977, first against Ethiopia, and
then against an internal guerrilla movement.
Largely as a result of structural adjustment in the latter
half of the 1980s, government employment was not lucrative at
face value. A family of six needed an estimated 6,990 shillings
monthly for food, clothing, rent, fuel, light, and water. The
highest civil service salary was 2,000 shillings per month, of
which 525 shillings was deducted for taxes and other charges. The
highest take-home pay, including allowances, in government was
about 2,875 shillings.
Urban wages that were inadequate to address basic human needs
might lead an analyst to expect near-starvation in urban Somalia.
However, a 1984-85 household survey in Mogadishu reported that
only 17 percent of the city's families lived below the poverty
threshold. A November 1986 study in the Waaberi district of
Mogadishu found only 7 percent had incomes below the poverty
line. Informal observations of urban life in Somalia reported in
the 1980s concurred that the population appeared well-fed.
The puzzle of low government wages coupled with a reasonable
urban standard of living can be solved by examining the survival
strategies of urban families. In the potential urban labor force
of 300,000 to 360,000 people, there were only 90,282 wage
earners, which suggested that government employment was only one
part of a family survival strategy. Many families had one member
working for the government, not so much for the salary, but for
the access to other officials that enabled the family to engage
in quasi-legal trading activities. Remittances from overseas
prevented starvation for some families. Many urban families had
members who were livestock traders and through franco
valuta had access to foreign exchange. Many government
workers prospered on bribery from the profiteers in the so-called
gray economy. Other government workers could obtain "letters of
credit" (the right to draw funds from government-held foreign
exchange accounts) allowing them to import goods for sale and for
family use. Still other civil servants moonlighted for
international agencies, receiving valuable foreign currency for
their efforts. These strategies were excluded from most
macroeconomic assessments.
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