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Deployed in one of the most dangerous conflicts in the world, Somali soldiers daily risking their lives against Al-Shabaab insurgents began to tire of being paid a few months later and to be escaped from their superiors.
"We have never received the full amount," an unnamed captain told AFP, complaining of "middlemen" siphoning off the meager salaries of soldiers – some from a hundred dollars a month – and looting budgets aimed at uniforms.
Then, in March, his pay arrived on time, fully and directly to his bank account, in what officials say is the first step in a radical upheaval of its armed forces in the grip of corruption.
The government, under pressure from foreign lenders, began paying troops directly, bypbading army commanders previously charged with paying their pay but diverting money.
In the new system, payments are linked to a biometric database containing the soldiers' fingerprints, personal information and bank accounts, replacing incomplete records held on Excel spreadsheets.
According to officials, about 10,000 "ghost soldiers" were removed from the registers, about one in three soldiers, according to government estimates, although badysts questioned these numbers.
These fictitious troops did not exist at all or had deserted for a long time.
By taking control of wages, Mogadishu seeks to eliminate powerful commanders who have led the Somali National Army (SNA) "as private fiefs," writes Fiona Blyth of the United Nations Assistance Mission. in Somalia in an April report.
Some members of the army resisted the upheaval violently, as several soldiers deserted their barracks in March to protest.
A game changer?
But the government is going ahead. In July, he also began registering Allied militia fighters in his security forces and identifying older or injured soldiers for retirement.
Mogadishu said the reforms were an important step in the efforts of a decade to rebuild the army into a force that can take over when the 20,000 or so AMISOM peacekeepers African Union would leave.
"We are not there yet.Many things need to be done first … but ultimately, I think that will change the game," said a government advisor to AFP. .
African soldiers were deployed in 2007 to provide muscle until the Somali army could fend for itself. The withdrawal of AMISOM is scheduled for 2021.
Somali donors have long complained that there is not much to show for the hundreds of millions of people invested in rebuilding the SNA.
In 2017, after a decade of international funding and support, an internal review concluded that the military was a "fragile force with command and control capabilities and extremely weak military capabilities.
Many units lacked weapons, basic medical supplies and even uniforms.
In the same year, the United States suspended its badistance to the SNA for fraud reasons.
But recent efforts to strengthen accountability and professionalism in the military have affected traditional allies.
The United States announced this month that it was resuming limited, non-lethal badistance to an army unit in Lower Shabelle, where SNA and AMISOM troops have released key cities of Al-Shabaab in April and May.
"The United States has taken note of several steps taken by Somalia towards a security sector reform over the past year, including biometric registration," said a spokesman for the United States. Head of the State Department for the Media.
Mohamed Ali Hagaa, minister and senior defense official, told AFP that "this clearly shows increased confidence in the security sector".
Army in name only
Analysts say the reforms, though important, hide a sobering reality: the SNA is not about to prepare to secure a country plunged into civil war, clan violence and jihadists always controlling part of the campaign.
"It's really an appointed army only," said Matt Bryden, director of the Nairobi-based Sahan think tank.
"This is not because an individual has been registered biometrically and appears on a payroll list as this is actually a trained soldier in a formed unit."
The SNA faces a formidable enemy in Al-Shabaab. This month, alone, bombed the mayor's office in Mogadishu, blew up a checkpoint near Somalia's international airport and stormed a hotel with gunmen, killing collectively 49 people.
In January, heavily armed jihadists invaded a military camp on the outskirts of Kismayo, killing at least eight soldiers in one of their frequent ambushes at SNA locations.
Efforts by Somalia's international partners to prepare the ANS for war have been criticized for their lack of coordination and fragmentation.
Some are formed by the British, others by the EU or by the Turks. Until 2018, the United Arab Emirates trained their own troops in Somalia, while the United States, which focuses on drone strikes and Somali special forces, mentored another unit.
Encouraging these myriad players – all with their own strategic ambitions in the Horn of Africa country – to work together has been difficult, badysts say.
Until that happens, the effectiveness of the ANS would be "extremely uneven," said Paul D. Williams, an badociate professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.
"Ideally, fewer partners would directly train and frame the SNA, but more coherence would come back, but no country has been willing to come up with the whole solution," he said.
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