Mutinous officers told the Puntland Post that “roadblocks will remain in place until the Puntland State Government pays our salaries.”
Soldiers claimed that in erecting the roadblocks they had prevented Puntland’s Finance Minister Hassan Shire from travelling on the road for official business reasons.
In 2020, the Puntland State Government introduced a biometric system to weed out phantom soldiers.
A senior Puntland State Government official involved in the security reform told the Puntland Post reporter that “if soldiers are legitimately on the government payroll, they must be paid on time.”
This article first appeared in the © Puntland Post, 2021 and is republished with permission