Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter Discusses Security Partnership With Leaders in Ethiopia
By Cheryl Pellerin | American Forces Press Service
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, July 25, 2013 – Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter met with senior government and military leaders here to discuss the U.S.-Ethiopia security partnership and shared interests in East African security challenges, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said today in a statement.
You do our bidding in the region and we won’t mention your tortures and murders. We got a deal!
Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter meets with Gen. Samora Yenus, chief of staff for Ethiopia’s defense forces, at the Ethiopian National Defense Force headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, July 24, 2013. DOD photo by Marine Corps Sgt. Aaron Hostutler
Carter’s July 23-24 visit to this Horn of Africa country was the final leg of a three-country trip that began in Israel and included a stop in Uganda.
The deputy secretary is the highest-ranking Defense Department official to visit Ethiopia in more than a decade, Little said.
“My visit here to Addis represents not only the increasing importance we place on our partnership with Ethiopia, but the importance we place on the role of the African Union also in addressing Africa’s security challenges, be it Somalia, Mali, the troubled Sudans, or the Central African Republic,” Carter said after a meeting last night with Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.
Carter characterized the U.S.-Ethiopia partnership as an important bilateral relationship and expressed gratitude to Hailemariam for the critical role Ethiopia has played in addressing regional challenges in Somalia and the Sudans.
“Ethiopia and the United States have shared interests in these countries and we continue to explore additional ways that we can work together to tackle East Africa’s security challenges,” the deputy secretary said.
“I’d like to note that my government recognizes Africa’s strategic importance,” he added, “and we at the Department of Defense recognize its strategic importance today and [for] the future.”
Carter and Hailemariam also discussed next steps in response to recent events in South Sudan and exchanged views on the African Peace and Security Architecture, maritime security, and conflicts in Somalia, Mali, the Central African Republic and Africa’s Great Lakes region. The African Peace and Security Architecture is an ongoing Africa-AU framework for crisis management on the African continent.
A senior defense official said that Ethiopia is not a formal partner in the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, called AMISOM, it has forces in Somalia and was the first of Somalia’s neighbors to respond against al-Shabaab, even before the African Union pulled together what now is AMISOM. Al-Shabaab is an al-Qaida-linked militant group and U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization fighting to create a fundamentalist Islamic state in Somalia.
“The Ethiopians are the No. 1 peacekeeping contributor in Africa at this point in terms of number of forces,” the official added. “They have substantial forces involved in South Sudan and in Sudan, and they’ve been involved diplomatically there as well.”
Carter also met with Chief of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces Gen. Samora Yenus to discuss the critical role Ethiopia has played in stabilizing Somalia and providing peacekeepers along the border between Sudan and South Sudan.
While in Addis Ababa, home of the African Union headquarters, the deputy secretary met with Erastus Mwencha, deputy chairperson of the African Union Commission, the most senior DOD leader ever to visit the AU. The African Union, made up of 54 African states, this year celebrated the 50th anniversary of its original Organization of African Unity. The AU took the place of the OAU nearly a decade ago, and one of its objectives is to promote peace, security and stability on the continent.
At the AU, Carter thanked Mwencha for the African Union’s leadership in tackling Africa’s security challenges.
The deputy secretary also met with alumni from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Addis, founded in 1999 and one of five DOD regional centers.
The ACSS is an agency within DOD that serves as a link between military and civilians involved in the security sector from across Africa, Europe and the United States, according to center literature. The goal is to bring people together to maintain a global network of professionals with a shared commitment to addressing security-related challenges facing Africa.
At a breakfast yesterday morning, Carter met with ACSS alumni from across the continent who offered their perspectives on Africa’s progress in addressing its security and development challenges.
“My job in the Department of Defense is to let people have the basic security that allows everything else in life to be possible — economic development, political development, personal development, community development and everything else,” he told the alumni.
None of that is possible, he said, unless people can wake up every morning and go to work and take their children to school and do all kinds of everyday activities in a safe environment. A few places in the world are blessed with such security, and after a while begin to take it for granted, he added, and people who don’t have it think of nothing else.
“So our job in part is to provide that security. Here in Africa, there are so many sources of insecurity and certainly the United States military is not the answer to them,” Carter said. “We try to make contributions where we can, where you teach us that would be a useful thing to do, and I’m very open to that.
“We in the United States are increasingly turning our thoughts to Africa,” he continued, “because we recognize that this is one of the places that is going to determine its future and our future by trade and culture and many other things.”
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — I AM jailed, with around 200 other inmates, in a wide hall that looks like a warehouse. For all of us, there are only three toilets. Most of the inmates sleep on the floor, which has never been swept. About 1,000 prisoners share the small open space here at Kaliti Prison. One can guess our fate if a communicable disease breaks out.
I was arrested in September 2011 and detained for nine months before I was found guilty in June 2012 under Ethiopia’s overly broad Anti-Terrorism Proclamation, which ostensibly covers the “planning, preparation, conspiracy, incitement and attempt” of terrorist acts. In reality, the law has been used as a pretext to detain journalists who criticize the government. Last July, I was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
I’ve never conspired to overthrow the government; all I did was report on the Arab Spring and suggest that something similar might happen in Ethiopia if the authoritarian regime didn’t reform. The state’s main evidence against me was a YouTube video of me, saying this at a public meeting. I also dared to question the government’s ludicrous claim that jailed journalists were terrorists.
Under the previous regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, I was detained. So was my wife, Serkalem Fasil. She gave birth to our son in prison in 2005. (She was released in 2007.) Our newspapers were shut down under laws that claim to fight terrorism but really just muzzle the press.
We need the United States to speak out. In the long march of history, at least two poles of attraction and antagonism have been the norm in world politics. Rarely has only one nation carried the burden of leadership. The unipolar world of the 21st century, dominated for the past two decades by the United States, is a historical anomaly. And given America’s role, it bears a responsibility to defend democracy and speak out against those nations that trample it.
I distinctly remember the vivacious optimism that inundated the United States when the Soviet Union imploded in the early 1990s. This was not glee generated by the doom of an implacable enemy, but thrill germinated by the real possibilities that the future held for freedom.
And nothing encapsulated the spirit of the times better than the idea of “no democracy, no aid.” Democracy would no longer be the esoteric virtue of Westerners but the ubiquitous expression of our common humanity.
But sadly America’s actions have fallen far short of its words. Suspending aid, as many diplomats are apt to point out, is no panacea for all the ills of the world. Nor are sanctions. But that’s a poor excuse for the cynicism that dominates conventional foreign policy. There is space for transformative vision in diplomacy.
Sanctions tipped the balance against apartheid in South Africa, minority rule in Zimbabwe, and military dictatorship in Myanmar. Sanctions also buttressed peaceful transitions in these countries. Without the hope of peaceful resolution embedded in the sanctions, a descent to violence would have been inevitable.
Now that large swaths of Africa have become safely democratic, ancient and fragile Ethiopia, where a precarious dictatorship holds sway, is dangerously out of sync with the times.
In May, America’s secretary of state, John Kerry, visited Ethiopia and lauded the country’s economic growth. His words showed how little attention he paid to reality. The State Department’s annual report on human-rights conditions has been critical of Ethiopia’s government since 2005. I’d like to think that report represents the real stance of America’s government, rather than Mr. Kerry’s praise for our authoritarian leaders.
Not much has changed since our last dictator, Mr. Meles, died last August. There have been no major policy changes. The draconian press and antiterrorism laws are still there. There has been no improvement when it comes to press freedom.
With a population fast approaching 100 million, Ethiopia, unlike Somalia, is simply too big to ignore or contain with America’s regional proxies.
As Ethiopia goes, so goes the whole Horn of Africa — a region where instability can have major security and humanitarian implications for the United States and Europe. Al Qaeda has a presence here, and hundreds of millions of aid dollars flow into the region while millions of emigrants flow out.
In other words, Ethiopia must not be allowed to implode. And it would be irresponsible for the world’s lone superpower to stand by and do nothing.
It is time for the United States to live up to its historical pledge by taking action against Ethiopia, whose reckless government has, since 2005, been the world’s star backslider on democracy.
I propose that the United States impose economic sanctions on Ethiopia (while continuing to extend humanitarian aid without precondition) and impose travel bans on Ethiopian officials implicated in human rights violations.
Tyranny is increasingly unsustainable in this post-cold-war era. It is doomed to failure. But it must be prodded to exit the stage with a whimper — not the bang that extremists long for.
I am confident that America will eventually do the right thing. After all, the new century is the age of democracy primarily because of the United States.
Here in the Ethiopian gulag, this alone is reason enough to pay homage to the land of the brave.
Eskinder Nega, an Ethiopian journalist and the recipient of the 2012 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, has been imprisoned since September 2011.
The 30th anniversary celebration of the annual Ethiopian soccer and cultural festival that just concluded in Washington is a rejection of division along ethnic lines and an affirmation of Ethiopian unity and nationalism.
“I saw Ethiopians, who did not know the tribe, region, religion or political view of others around them, treating others with respect, consideration and civility. I wondered, if Ethiopians can do it so well here in America, why can they not do it in Ethiopia …. It could make Ethiopia a haven, not only for Ethiopians, but for others as well. ” Obang Metho
Addis Ababa– An Ethiopian Airline plane from the capital Addis Ababa to the northern tourist town of Axum was forced to make a rough landing on Wednesday after its smoke sensors went off minutes before landing, an airline official told Sudan Tribune.
The plane, a Bombardier Q400 with 78 passengers and crew on board, made the landing after alarms went off went off to warn of smoke in one of its wings.
“The smoke sensors in the aircraft indicated a fire alarm one minute before landing” the official who decline to be named said adding, “the left wing of the plane was smoking and one engine was not functioning properly”
The official said the cause of the smoke is under investigation. By the time of filing this report, Ethiopian Airlines had not made an official statement over the incident.
“We could see smoke coming out of the plane’s wing. Everybody panicked. It was a very scary incident,” said Rigaet Haile-aeb, one of the passengers on board told the Sudan Tribune by phone.
Haile-aeb was travelling with her husband and their one year old daughter.
The captain reportedly made a steep descent and quickly landed before reaching the main runway to avoid a potential fire outbreak as all passengers safely disembarked from the plane.
Quoting aviation experts, the Ethiopian Airlines officials said the aircraft could have blown up in the sky, had the smoke – which had the potential of turning into fire – began five minutes earlier.
The official lauded the captain’s quick measures and his courage in handling the situation professionally. Passengers reportedly paid tribute to the captain for saving their lives.
This is a second Ethiopian passenger plane to face difficulties in less than one week.
Last week, Ethiopian Airlines owned Boeing 787 Dreamliner which was parked at Britain’s Heathrow airport caught fire forcing a temporary shutdown to the airport’s main runways.
In the construction sector, Ethiopia exhibits most of the classic warning signs of corruption risk, including instances of poor-quality construction, inflated unit output costs, and delays in implementation. In turn, these factors appear in some cases to be driven by unequal or unclear contractual relationships, poor enforcement of professional standards, high multipliers between public sector and private sector salaries, wide-ranging discretionary powers exercised by government, a lack of transparency, and a widespread perception of hidden barriers to market entry.
Ethiopia’s “construction sector” falls into four categories: roads, water supply and irrigation, power, and other public works including construction of universities, schools, hospitals and markets. Annual spending on roads alone is estimated to be US$1.2 billion. The “government” totally dominates the construction sector. “Ethiopia is unusual compared with most other African countries, which have already fully privatized the design and construction of public works.”
There are multiple and “interrelated drivers of corruption in Ethiopia’s construction sector.” These drivers are “related to deficiencies in accountability (transparency based on clear performance criteria), capacity (availability of sufficient material and human resources and proper procedures), and trust (confidence in the market that allows businesses to invest in increasing their own capacity). In Ethiopia, “A lack of capacity makes corruption possible, a lack of accountability makes corruption happen, and a lack of trust allows corruption to take root.”
The WB report highlights corruption in Ethiopia’s construction sector along six dimensions. The policymaking and regulatory processes are at high-risk area of corruption. Such corruption “has a major effect on sector governance.” Policies and regulations could “encourage, or help hide, corrupt practices” and unless corrected perpetuate corruption by groups or individuals. The Ethiopian “government” “controls the price of construction materials, access to finance, and access to equipment. It controls professional and company registrations. It maintains high-level, bilateral infrastructure deals with China and lacks independent performance audits.” According to the WB report, “Many stakeholders are concerned about the possibility of a connection between the dominant role of Chinese contractors in the road sector and high-level links between the Ethiopian and Chinese governments” and the “lack of effective competition, with Chinese contractors dominating the international market and a limited set of domestic contractors dominating the national market.” These problems are compounded by other factors such as poor quality control, weak enforcement of professional standards and overall lack of transparency. Professionals in the construction sector are reluctant to complain “for fear of being victimized” and believing there is no truly independent body to which they can appeal.” Since the “government is a major client”, “there is a reluctance to express dissent.”
The planning and budgeting (P&B) process is the second area of high corruption in Ethiopia’s construction sector. When planning and budgeting “deviates from the use of a rational, objective basis for prioritizing the allocation of limited resources on the basis of need, anticipated rates of return, or other objective criteria,” it opens the floodgates of corruption. In Ethiopia, the P&B process is characterized by “lack of separation between policy making, budget allocation, and implementation functions” and “top-down planning by decree.” There are instances in which “projects that are not responding to a prioritized need and (when combined with weak procurement regulations) can sometimes be negotiated directly between a corrupt official and a specific construction company.” Corruption also occurs in the form of “adoption of inappropriately high construction standards to enhance contract values, construction of new infrastructure while neglecting to maintain existing facilities, conflicts of interest for officials with a stake in the construction sector” and aiding “construction companies with party political allegiances.”
The third area of corruption is found in management and performance monitoring . According to the WB report, management weaknesses can lead to corruption in three main ways: “(a) Without basic good management controls, individuals (whether working for the client, the consultant, or the contractor) can find themselves free to take shortcuts that may cross the line into corruption. (b) Without good data management and reporting systems, the management information needed to identify and address corruption does not exist. (c) If the management is so incompetent that it gives rise to administrative or technical obstacles that are otherwise impossible to address, corrupt activities may be seen as the only realistic way for otherwise professionally minded individuals to deliver results.” In Ethiopia such corruption occurs for a number of reasons including “low remuneration of some managers and procurement staff”, “shortlisting of poorly performing companies and companies without capacity for new work”, “difficulty of obtaining public information about contracts,” and “lack of independent professional bodies and weak enforcement of professional standards”, among others.
The fourth area of corruption is manifest in the tendering and procurement (T&P) process. Among the commonly encountered corruption risks in the T&P process include sale of inside bidding information by corrupt officials to prospective bidders to enhance the prospects for submitting a successful bid. It could also involve “collusion between contractors in the form of price fixing and intimidation of aspiring new entrants, unofficial quota system for the award of contracts on the basis of political affiliation of the companies involved and bribery.” In Ethiopia, the list of corrupt practices in the T&P process is mindboggling. In addition to the “general lack of transparency in procurement processes,” the “government” “shortlists companies known to be poor performers or lacking requisite experience or capability,” excludes “capable companies”, inconsistently applies procurement standards, imposes unfair selective restriction of access to advance information about bidding opportunities and distorts the bidding process to benefit favored bidders, among others.
The fifth area of corruption is manifest in the operations phase. Generally, contractors who have paid bribes to secure contracts “try to recoup his outlay during the construction phase. This is most commonly achieved through various forms of fraud involving client’s staff or the supervising consultant’s staff, including supply of inferior materials, falsification of quantities, inflated claims, and concealment of defects.” In Ethiopia, “contracts are rarely completed on budget”. Significant delays in contract completion are common. There is “often a problem with poor-quality construction” and “some contractors knowingly underbid then recoup costs through variations.” Contractors “conceal construction defects or improperly influence client or consultant to accept substandard materials”. In other cases, a “consultant or contractor submits falsified documentation” and “receives exaggerated payments as result of falsified utilization records.”
The sixth area of corruption in the construction sector involves payment and settlement of certificates. A client “can fabricate a justification for refusing or withholding payment as “a means of punishing companies that have refused to honor understandings.” In the absence of effective complaints adjudication or appeals process, this could result in corruption “related to legal advisers, including in dispute resolution. Such advisers may be implicated in the submission of incorrect claims, concealment of documents, the supply of false witness statements, bribery or blackmail of witnesses, or excess billing, all of which contribute to overall levels of corruption in the project.” In Ethiopia, it is “commonly reported that facilitation payments may be required to speed up settlement of certificates.” Alternatively, “contractors sometimes curtail progress because cash flow problems arise as a result of late payments.”
EthioConstruction Corruption, Inc.
The Ethiopian “government” is not only the single dominant construction client but also the singular policy maker and regulator of the construction sector. The “government” is in effect EthioConstruction Corruption, Inc. Though the WB report is timid in stating the facts as they are and frames the truth in the buttery language of bureaucratese, it is clear that the type of corruption in the Ethiopian construction sector covers the whole gamut including the policy making and budgetary process, project selection, tender specifications, procurement outcomes, contract negotiations and renegotiations and payments. It is manifest from the report that the bidding process is generally rigged and projects are often granted to companies that have more political ties to the ruling regime than qualifications. It is obvious that newcomers and those disfavored by the regime have little chance of securing public works project contracts. It is also manifest from the totality of the evidence in the report that public project money is ingenuously finds its way to the pockets of top regime officials.
The “tofu” road to Kombolcha
In June 2013, the “Ethiopian Roads Authority” signed another agreement with two Chinese companies to upgrade the 133 Km-long Kombolcha-Bati-Mille road to asphalt-concrete level. The Chinese companies will snag a whopping 2.8 billion Br. in the deal. Why aren’t Ethiopian construction companies getting these contracts? In other words, why are Chinese companies eating the lunches of Ethiopian companies? Why is there not an Ethiopia construction consortium organized (with the aid of the “government”) to bid for such construction jobs? Will there ever be Ethiopian construction companies with the capacity for large-scale infrastructure projects? How could the “government” talk about development when the “infrastructure development” is left entirely to foreign contractors? How can the “government” justify use of international bank loans to bankroll foreign companies squeezing out homegrown ones? How is Chinese economic penetration and exploitation of Ethiopia different from the exploitation of the evil neoliberal, imperialist, neocolonial, globalist… exploitation?
It is common knowledge that many state-owned Chinese construction companies engage in shoddy workmanship not only in Africa but also in China. After Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji saw the shoddy workmanship of flood dykes on the Yangtze River in 1998 which resulted in major loss of life and property, he described the work of these companies as “tofu” construction. There is much documented about corruption and shoddy workmanship in the Chinese construction sector. “All across China, everything from sidewalks to apartment buildings to mega dams are compromised corruption.” Chinese construction companies in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa will underbid any other local or international competitors because they are not interested in short-term profits but sector monopoly. They maintain low profits to increase market share (monopolize) at the expense of local companies while driving out of international competitors. That’s how they do business. The blame for Chinese monopoly of the public works sector in Ethiopia should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the ruling regime in Ethiopia which manifestly lacks the technical capacity and competence and political will to do what needs to be done to ensure a reasonably corruption-free and high quality construction sector.
Reducing corruption through CoST accountability
The Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) launched by the British Department for International Development (DFID) and taken over by the World Bank in 2012 “seeks to help (9 countries in a pilot program including Ethiopia) participating countries improve the value for money spent on the construction of public infrastructure.” The program aims to create a “multi-stakeholder initiative designed to promote transparency and accountability in publicly financed construction.” At the core of the program “is the belief that the processes involved in the construction of public infrastructure must be made more transparent. The public must be armed with the information they need to hold decision makers to account and to ensure better value for money in the construction sector.” CoST aims to “establish a public disclosure process for the construction sector that is viable and appropriate to country conditions, that is sustainable in the medium and long term as a government system, and that achieves a credible and substantial level of compliance in the relevant sector entities.” Ultimately, CoST seeks to “reduce waste in public budgets, enables fairer competition in the private sector and increased opportunities for investors.”
On November 17, 2012, a CoST consultancy agreement was “signed between Engineers Against Poverty (EAP) and Hagos Abdie (Individual Consultant); the consultant is selected as a preferred candidate among bidders invited through short listing.” The aim of the consultancy agreement is to find ways of maximizing the capacity of government agencies to gather, verify and disclose information into the public realm. (It is unclear why Abdie was “selected as a preferred candidate among bidders invited through short listing” and how much he was paid for his consultancy services.) But the selection of Abdie lends irrefutable proof that only those closely allied to the ruling regime get plum contracts as the World Bank report amply documented in its massive study.
Close examination of Abdie’s 38-page “Assessment of procuring entity capacity to disclose project information in Ethiopia” shows that it is nothing more than a cut-and-paste of bureaucratic documents from a variety of sources. The report stylistically “collates and assembles information” on various projects, a task that could be done efficiently by an adroit college intern. One is hard pressed to show how the “collated and assembled” hodgepodge of information could “arm” the public in “holding decision makers to account and to ensure better value for money in the construction sector.” The recommendations at the end of each section of the “assessment” appear to be unoriginal, cut-and-paste boilerplate recommendations. There is no need to waste time discussing Abdie’s “assessment report”, but one cannot escape the irony of corruption even when corruption is being “assessed”.
Increasing transparency and accountability in Ethiopia’s construction sector
Corruption is dyed in the very fabric of the ruling regime in Ethiopia. It cannot be washed out with the detergent of make-believe anti-corruption programs designed by self-serving, sanctimonious and self-congratulating international poverty pimps. Neither could it be solved by corrupt anti-corruption crusaders. The simplest and most direct approach to dealing with corruption in Ethiopia requires massive involvement of civil society watchdogs and rigorous independent audits. Those countries that have been successful in controlling corruption in the construction sector have implemented have had rigorous compliance audits and made available to the public comprehensive and detailed information on bids, winning bids for government contracts and reports of procurement audits on a timely basis. Most of them disseminate up to date comprehensive public works contract information on line. They also allow civil society representatives to observe the tendering process.
Ethiopia supposedly has a freedom of information law (Proclamation No. 590/2008 – A Proclamation to Provide for Freedom of the Mass Media and Access to Information.) Anyone who has carefully studied this proclamation will be impressed by the lofty platitudes, truisms and boilerplate legal clichés and verbiage cut and pasted from the laws of other nations. Under the proclamation, citizens supposedly have a right of “access, [to] receive and import information held by public bodies, subject to justifiable limits based on overriding public and private interests.” But the “justifiable limits” include non-disclosure of any Cabinet documents or information (Art. 24), any information relating to the “financial welfare of the nation or the ability of the government to manage the economy of the country” (Art. 25), and any information on the “operation of public bodies [including] an opinion, advice, report or recommendation obtained or prepared or an account of a consultation, discussion or deliberation… minutes of a meetings…” (Art. 26). Simply stated, no information may be released on the activities of government ministers and officials, banks or any other official financial institutions and the internal proceedings or external reviews of public institutions. To top it all off, any public body may refuse a request for information if it determines for any reason the “harm to the protected interest which would be caused by disclosure outweighs the public interest in disclosure.” (Art. 28.)
Corruption, like mushrooms, grows best in darkness. The benighted leaders of the ruling regime in Ethiopia have so far provided splendid husbandry to mushrooming corruption in all sectors of the Ethiopian political economy. What the people of Ethiopia need now are “sunshine laws” for their country of 13 months of sunshine!
To track corruption in Ethiopia, follow the money. It leads straight to the top!
Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino and is a practicing defense lawyer.
Previous commentaries by the author are available at:
http://open.salon.com/blog/almariam/
www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/
Amharic translations of recent commentaries by the author may be found at:
By Cheryl Pellerin | American Forces Press Service
July 20, 2013
ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT, July 20, 2013 – Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter began a weeklong trip today that will take him first to Israel and then to Uganda and Ethiopia in sub-Saharan Africa.
During Carter’s first official trip to Israel as deputy secretary, he will meet with senior Israeli defense officials to discuss issues of mutual strategic importance and reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the relationship between the United States and Israel.
While in Israel, Carter will meet with Defense Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon, Deputy Defense Minister Amos Gilad and National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror, and attend an official dinner hosted by Ehud Shani, director-general of the Ministry of Defense.
After leaving Israel, Carter will stop briefly in Uganda to meet with senior Ugandan government and defense officials. The deputy secretary will thank the Ugandans for their continued commitment in maintaining and improving security in the region.
From Uganda, Carter will travel to Ethiopia to meet with Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegu and senior defense officials to discuss issues of mutual importance. The deputy secretary also will thank the Ethiopians for the positive and important security role they continue to play in the region
In my fifth commentary on corruption in Ethiopia this year, I focus on the construction sector. The other commentaries are 