EDITOR’S NOTE: Guess who owns the fertilizer importing company? Farmers also complain that the chemical-based fertilizer is poisoning the land and underground water sources.
By Jason McLure, Bloomberg
Ethiopia and the World Bank are close to an agreement that will allow the Horn of Africa country to divert $237 million in loans and grants for infrastructure projects to purchase fertilizer, the bank said.
Ethiopia needs the fertilizer before next year’s planting season, Kenicha Ohashi, director of the World Bank’s Ethiopia program, said in an interview at his office in the capital, Addis Ababa, yesterday. Ethiopia is Africa’s largest coffee producer.
“What we’re trying to do is provide foreign exchange,” said Ohashi said. “This is like doing budget support. It’s helping the government with hard currency.” An additional $64 million in credit from the African Development Bank will be diverted for fertilizer purchases, the state-run Ethiopian Herald said on Aug. 2.
Rising domestic demand, drought, and higher world fuel and food prices expanded Ethiopia’s trade deficit to $4.7 billion in the 12 months to July from $3.9 billion a year earlier. The country has less than two months of foreign currency reserves, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The financing of the fertilizer is equivalent to about 10 percent of the World Bank’s $2.4 billion Ethiopia program, which includes $1.6 billion in loans and $800 million in grants this year. Most of that money was allocated to road building, irrigation systems and the construction of power transmission lines to connect Ethiopia and Sudan.
4 thoughts on “Ethiopia will divert World Bank loans to buy fertilizer”
It may be a good idea to buy fertilizer with the World Bank loans than to buy sophisticated weapons to kill the Ethiopian Somalis in Ogaden and the people of Mogadishu; however, who is going to get the fertilizer, the Amhara farmer, the Oromo farmer, or the Mekelle farmer? Indeed, the fertilizer may poison the land and that is why Meles wants to poison the Ethiopian land and destroy every thing as he has been poisoning the entire country through his corrupt ideology – divide and rule. In reality though, he is diverting the money into his pocket in the name of purchasing fertilizer.
The Ethiopian farmers are right that the fertilizer may poison the land, and the effect of consuming food harvested from a fertilized land is to produce mentally retarded children and thousands of cancer patients who could not afford to treat their diseases. Knowing the effect of such a destructive product, Meles Seitanawi will not allow the Mekelle farmers to use it until it is proven first on the Amhara or the Oromo lands and tested safe.
As Ethiopia is short of foreign currency, it is also, domestically, short of good governance and leader ship, and that is why Meles is planning to construct an electric power transmission between Sudan and Ethiopian so that the two criminals – Meles and Al-Bashir of Sudan – would be in close touch more than ever before.
I don’t believe theses suppliers, not only with fertilizer but also with medcine. They are always after their cents, they don’t care about Africans at all. And it is great for them if they find African officials who only see the positive side of it or who collaborate with them for some money. Who knows what they are doing with the polio immunization? I think there should be a big continental movement towards cheking of this unethical evil doings. Because we are paying one way or the other to purchase, and we need to get the right product for what we pay!
May be we need to follow the Chinese way with respect to corruption , that of execution! imagine thousands of children got sick or being used for expermentation with their medicine or whatever product, and paying for that or (through aid which is paid in some other way). Who is accounted for, who is to blame, how can we prevent if our own people are not willing? I think the gov’t should act if not aware of.
Woyane state terrorism can also use fertilizer to make bombs it is a government that care less for its people. Fertilizer can only be useful if it is the right kind,amount and in combination with other agricultural inputs. Fertilizer may fill the pocket of woyane but not necessarily that of farmers.
The major problem of Ethiopia is poor governance not fertilizer. World Bank knows what he is doing. The main purpose of the Bank is to indebt the country and make it an American/British colony.
Woyanne and their masters have a good thing going in this deal, Woyanne front companies will buy the fertilizer, most of it not suitable for the average farmer in Ethiopia, some of it expired and the rest that goes to the farmers for a handsome profit to both the Woyanne front companies and the exporters, money gets exchanged, the Ethiopian people get deeper in debt, famine continues year after year while the world bank and the countries they represent have their puppet do the dirty work for them by keeping the Ethiopian people undernourshed, impoverished and at each other’s throats. Neo-colonialism at its finest.