X-URL: http://www10.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/081000somalia-govern.html
August 10, 2000
MOGADISHU JOURNAL
Somali Businesses Stunted by Too-Free Enterprise
By IAN FISHER
M OGADISHU, Somalia, Aug. 7 -- There are five competing airlines here; three
phone companies, which have
some of the cheapest rates in the world; at least two pasta factories; 45 private
hospitals; 55 providers
of electricity; 1,500 wholesalers for imported goods; and an infinite number of
guys with donkeys who will
deliver 55 gallons of clean water to your house for 25 cents.
What Somalia does not have is a government, and in many ways, that makes it the
world's purest laboratory
for capitalism. No one collects taxes. Business is booming. Libertarians of the
world, unite!
So it may come as a surprise that business people in Mogadishu, the wrecked and
lawless capital, are
begging for a government. They would love to be taxed and would gladly let
politicians meddle at least a
bit in their affairs.
......................
--
A host is a host from coast to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
