The groundwork for this project started in early 1962 when a UN-supported commission (known as the Establishment Commission) was set up to harmonize the inherited divergent bureaucratic systems of Italian and British Somalilands and reform it into an effective apparatus. The commission concluded its extended tenure, and its report was approved by the cabinet under Prime Minister Sharmar- kee. Because of the political pressure of the upcoming election, the report was set aside in 1963.

Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, loc. 777