Head of central bank of country with a shattered economy wants to transform ‘failed’ state
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People outside Somalia’s central Bank in Hamarwayne district, south of Mogadishu. The well-thumbed and ragged notes of the Somali shilling are in short supply because they were last printed before 1991.
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Image Credit: Reuter
When Washington DC was in financial crisis in the 1990s, Somali-born Abdusalam Omer joined a team that turned its “junk” bonds into investment grade paper. Now, as governor of the Central Bank of Somalia, he wants to transform a “failed” state.
There is no escaping the scale of his new assignment. His office in Mogadishu is surrounded by the bombed out shells of former banks, symbols of Somalia’s shattered economy and its broken financial system after two decades of conflict.
“We have to build brick by brick and person by person,” Omer told Reuters by telephone from the smartly painted central bank, which stands out against nearby wrecks that once housed Banca di Roma,
Commercial Bank of Somalia and other institutions.
There is no escaping the scale of his new assignment. His office in Mogadishu is surrounded by the bombed out shells of former banks, symbols of Somalia’s shattered economy and its broken financial system after two decades of conflict.
“We have to build brick by brick and person by person,” Omer told Reuters by telephone from the smartly painted central bank, which stands out against nearby wrecks that once housed Banca di Roma,
Commercial Bank of Somalia and other institutions.
“The task is so daunting,” said Omer, 58, a dual Somali-US national who left Somalia at 16 and returned this year.
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