UNITED NATIONS (BNO NEWS) – The United Nations (UN) called on Somalia’s Parliament on Monday to put focus on meeting the population’s needs and bolstering security.

“I am following, with great unease, the unhelpful debate about parliamentary issues now taking place in Mogadishu,” Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, said.

Recognizing the need to address the question of parliamentarians’ salaries, he continued, “at the same time, I deplore the time and energy wasted on arguments which could be devoted to resolving more pressing issues at hand,” which also include implementing the March agreement struck between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and Ahlu Sunna wal Jama, an opposition faction previously opposed to the transitional authority.

Ould-Abdallah expressed hope that Government and parliamentary leaders will be able to patch up their differences and tackle tasks affecting Somalis both within and outside the country, as he is planning to meet with Ambassador Claude Heller of Mexico, who chairs the UN sanctions committee for Somalia, when the body visits the region.

With 1.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), some 570,000 refugees in the region and nearly 3 million people dependent on humanitarian aid, Somalia – which has been devastated by factional fighting and without a functioning central government since 1991 – remains the setting of one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.

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