Governing Somalia from a hotel

The new security forces: traders hope they will cost less than paying the militias

By East Africa correspondent Cathy Jenkins in Mogadishu

Nearly two months after Somalia got its first president and parliament in nearly a decade, the country's new government is having to operate from a hotel in the capital, Mogadishu.

The country's new MPs are living and working from the hotel, both for their own security and because the civil war has left no government building intact.

Somalia's new civilian leaders have been lobbying regional and Middle Eastern leaders hard for financial support.

At the moment, Somalia's influential business community is the government's main financial backer.

Tax-free prosperity

Traders say that despite the prospect of taxes and duty, they welcome the new administration.

They carry boxes of batteries, yellow cooking-oil containers and sacks of flour which have been offloaded from cargo ships moored just offshore and brought to the beach in small barges.

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This is a natural port and the entry-point for thousands of tons of goods which will soon be on sale in Mogadishu's markets and far beyond.

It is also one huge duty-free zone.

The business community, which has thrived during a decade of civil war, pays no taxes here.

But with the formation of a government in Somalia this should change.

It is early days yet, but Somalia's new civilian leaders will be expecting to raise money as other governments do, from taxes and duty.

Port idle

Unusually, the prospect of the taxman arriving does not seem to bother Mogadishu's traders.

They say they would rather pay taxes than spend a hefty sum, as they do now, on the militiamen who provide the security for their goods.

One businessman who imports flour for his pasta factory in Mogadishu said he counts on 10% of the flour being damaged by the time it is carried up the beach at the natural port.

For the time being, there seems little prospect of Mogadishu's official port reopening.

That lies idle under the control of a warlord who has not yet been convinced of the advantages of a civilian government.