File Photo/Somali Times
By MP Dr Abdillahi Hashi Abib
Former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire warned that Somalia was entering a dangerous economic downturn. The Ministers of Finance, Planning and Defense- and the Chairman of the National Economic Council – ridiculed him and attempted to sell Somalia’s economic collapse as “successful policy.”
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The World Bank has now exposed their propaganda with brutal figures.
•GDP growth: 4.1% in 2024 → 3.0% in 2025 → 2.8% in 2026.
•Inflation: 3.7% in 2025 → 6.0% in 2026.
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•Private-consumption growth: 8.8% in 2024 → 3.1% in 2025 → 2.7% in 2026.
•Exports: −1.2% in 2025 → only 2.3% growth in 2026.
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•Government revenue: 7.6% of GDP in 2024 → 7.1% in 2025 → 6.8% in 2026 → 5.8% by 2028.
•Fiscal deficit: −0.4% of GDP in 2025 → −1.2% by 2028.
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•Current-account deficit: −9.6% of GDP in 2025 → −10% by 2028.
•Poverty: approximately 49.6% in 2026 – nearly one Somali in every two.
This is not economic success. It is an economic failure being repackaged by officials who cannot – or refuse to – understand basic economics.
The World Bank is exposing an outright GDP contraction. With Somalia’s rapidly expanding population, 2.8% GDP growth could mean little or no improvement in income per person, jobs or living standards.
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Behind the regime’s fake celebrations.
•6.5 million Somalis face acute food insecurity.
•1.84 million children are expected to suffer acute malnutrition in 2026.
•Another 290,000–680,000 people could be pushed into poverty.
•Approximately 90% of domestic revenue is consumed by the federal wage bill.
•Social-benefit spending reportedly collapsed to only 0.1% of GDP in 2025.
The World Bank also warns that the 2026 budget is built on optimistic or fantasy revenue assumptions, that expected grants may never arrive and that the government has failed to explain convincingly how its promised domestic-revenue increase will be achieved.
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In plain language: Somalia’s budget is built on disappearing foreign aid, imaginary revenue and political deception.
No economically literate official calls falling growth, rising inflation, shrinking revenue, contracting exports, widening deficits and mass poverty a success.
Khaire raised an economic alarm. They answered with ridicule because they could not answer with facts.