Addis Ababa — In Ethiopia, the rainy season starts sometime in June. This year, Ethiopian cities are starting the season dark and cold. Many people are spending their after work times at various places: cafeterias, bars, restaurants, cinema halls, religious centers, and so on. They don’t have power in their homes to do whatever they used to do.
Even worse, people are spending their daytimes idle – unless they have generators to work on, or they are lucky to be on day’s ration. Many large-scale industries were forced to stop operating by order from Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) because they consumed large amount of electric power, which the EEPCo cannot afford. Many of them indicate that they are heading straight into bankruptcy which may lead into layoffs of thousands of employees.
Small-scale factories and businesses are facing a very challenging time as well. Due to the power shortage, many have cut their payroll. Some pay their employees according to the days and times their employees work, which can be about 50% of their normal salary or less. Elias Garment is among those terribly affected private companies that pay its employees according to power availability and times worked.
There are companies that gave their employee a forced leave as well. This may lead into unpaid leave if the scenario continues this way.
People are immensely affected by the power shedding which is supposed to be at 50% blackout nationwide. This is extremely bad in itself. However, in reality, the real power outage is greater than 50% – a real scandal by any measure.
Bekele Tekelu works at a barber shop. He earns 300 birr per month. Due to the power rationing, the shop could not even pay the increasing house rent because the shop income decreased by more than 50%. Bekele believes he is still employed because the shop belongs to his uncle. Bekele supports his two sisters and himself with his 300 birr salary, but now he is afraid that, if the power cut continues, he may lose his job very soon.
A well-known construction and consulting company co-owner expressed his dismay this way: “I cannot even start and comment on it. It is so clear we cannot perform according to plan. The construction sector is already burdened with various problems from different directions. On the top of that, we don’t have power that can meet our minimum needs. We may use generator as an alternative power for those areas that demand small amount of electric power, but for the rest, we cannot sustain the cost of fuel. We cannot work without cement, but how can we afford to buy 400 Br per quintal? If the power shortage continues this way, I am afraid we will have to cut our human resources as we are going into bankruptcy ourselves.”
Ezega.com tried to reach officials from the public sector and the EEPCo. One person we reached was Tadele Yimer, President of Employers Federation. Tadele said, “We did not hear much of layoffs related to power cut since March 2009. However, the power shortage is terribly affecting various industries and the service sector. As a result, the country will lose enormous amount of income which could have been obtained from taxes.”
Kassahun Follo, President of the Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions, told Ezega.com, “We do not have much information about employee layoffs so far. We heard that Nas Foods Plc did layoff temporary workers. We really hope the dams will be filled with sufficient water soon and the power shedding adjusted for the better.”
Ezega.com reached EEPCo public relation officer, Ato Misker Negash, through the phone. Here follows excerpts from that interview:
Ezega.com: EEPCo told the mass media that it knew of the power demand and supply incompatibility. Did you inform the public?
EEPCO: First we should be aware of the cause of the problem, which is the power supply and demand gap. These days electric power is more than a basic consumption – it has social, economic and political implications. Due to the rapid growth of the economy, our consumption increased highly. In addition to this growth, the adverse effect of climate also contributed its part. The increased temperature of the climate that causes evaporation of the water is also a global phenomenon that played a role for the current power shortage.
We brought a generator with a 60 MW capacity that cost EEPCo $20,000/month for rent and another four million ETB/day for fuel to run the generator. Along with the generator, we brought 4.6 million bulbs with a cost of 45 million birr which we assumed will save 87MW. EEPCo expected demand to increase by 21% in 2001E.C. In reality, it grew by 24%. This was not what we expected.
Ezega.com: In addition to these measures, have you informed the public that they could face power shortage, so they can look for alternatives? Was it not your responsibility to warn the public and especially the various industries, which may touch on peoples’ lives directly and indirectly?
EEPCo: I am afraid I cannot say we provided sufficient information for our clients adequately. But we tried to inform them in different sessions. I can’t say we provided enough information.
Ezega.com: If the power shortage continues this way companies may end up in bankruptcy and layoff their employees? What is the plan to avoid such chaos?
EEPCo: I believe we are currently fighting with nature. The rainfall appears to be promising so far. If it keeps on raining like it is right now, we are optimistic that the problem will be solved soon. Gilgel Gebi II hydro-power with a 420MW and Tekeze hydro-power with 300MW installed capacity are finalized with around 98% of their construction and expected to come to production late this year, or early in 2002 E.C. These are expected to meet the growing demand of electric power in the country.
Ezega.com: EEPCo announced the current power shedding months ago which should have expired by now. Many expect better power rationing, but power rationing nonetheless. What is your plan going forward, and when are you going to announce it to the public?
EEPCo: I am afraid that this is not something that we can talk about now. As I said earlier, if we get adequate rainfall, we will surely improve the supply and bring in Gilgel Gibe II and Tekeze projects to full operation to meet the growing demand. We don’t have tangible information on hand at the moment to predict what we will be capable of in the near future.
In his recent address to parliament, Prime Minster Meles attributed the responsibility for the power rationing to “Poverty”. EEPCo assured the rationing will remain until July 7, 2009. However, there is no solid promise unless the rainfall meets expectations to fill the dams.
Although public representative say there is no significant layoff due to this years power rationing, employers are suffering from unplanned expenses and various losses. Many businesses are on the verge of cutting back employees. No one can seriously believe that such massive power failure will have no impact.
If what happened in Ethiopia this year were to happen in almost any country, the consequences would have been very severe indeed, with repercussions to those in positions of authority who allowed this to happen willy-nilly. Many heads would roll at the very minimum, but not in Ethiopia.
Addis Ababa — Aba Gebremedhin (formerly known as Aba Paulos), the Woyanne cadre who is installed as the patriarch of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Tewahdo Church, has been stripped of most of his administrative duties by the Synod, the Church’s executive body, according to the Addis Ababa-based newspaper Awramba Times.
The Synod decided to take such measures against Aba Gebremedhin in an emergency meeting after he arbitrarily suspended Addis Ababa bishop Abune Samuel.
There has been much talk recently about the possible “retirement” of the über-boss in Ethiopia. Reuters reported that “… Meles Zenawi wants to step down after 18 years running sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous country.” Apparently, the dictator is “bored” with the racket he has been running for the past 18 years, or at least nagging questions about when he will be calling it quits. The dictator says he needs the permission of La Famiglia, “his ruling party before he can leave.” Reuters rhetorically asked: “So when might he go? And what will happen if he does?”
According to Reuters’ guessing game, the dictator could “get permission to leave” at the party congress in September, but that is unlikely “a year before Ethiopia has its next national election due in June 2010.” He could be ousted as a result of an opposition win, but that “would be a shock. The 2005 elections ended in violence when Meles claimed victory, the opposition shouted fraud and about 200 protestors were killed by police and soldiers.” He “wins in 2010 and the opposition cries foul… But despite Ethiopia’s close relations with the West, allegations of fraud or violence would be more difficult for the international community to take a second time and the country could see its aid slashed, plunging it deeper into poverty.” The dictator’s party “wins the election, there is no violence and Meles will probably resign within two years and be replaced by a party loyalist who will continue his domestic, economic and foreign policies.” Or the dictator “serves another 5-year term and runs again.”
The dictator is dismissive of these speculations. He says he wants to relinquish power, go into retirement and “have a long good rest.”
To Chuckle or to Guffaw?
We have listened to the amusing blather about staying or leaving office for the past several years. We are never sure whether to chuckle or guffaw every time we hear it recycled through the propaganda machine: “I will resign. I will leave office at the end of my term, but only if my party allows me to. I will stay in office as long as my party demands it of me. I will leave office, but I won’t tell you when. I will leave office when I leave office. Oh! Questions about when I will leave office bore me.” Indeed, the whole affair has become a recurrent farcical comic opera. International journalists ask the dictator when he plans to leave, and he feeds them the same crock of ambiguous, opaque and enigmatic answers in his usual doublespeak and pretentious phraseology. The journalists draw up their own fanciful speculations about what he will do, and the charade goes on and on. But the climax of this bizarre jabber is always the same: “May be I will go. May be I won’t. It’s for me to know, and for the rest of you to speculate about and play guessing games.”
The Solipsistic Logic of Dictators
The question is never whether any dictator will stay or go. We know from Gandhi’s axiom that all dictators eventually go: “There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall — think of it, ALWAYS.” The question about when a tyrant will fall is solipsistic (has special meaning only to the tyrant) and reveals much about the tyrant’s egoistic self-absorption and self-indulgence with power. The tyrant’s choice of the word “boring” to dismissively respond to questions about the timing of his departure is quite curious. Boredom and anxiety are states of mind on a psychological continuum. Could it be that giving a date certain for leaving office creates in the mind of the tyrant deep angst about unclinging from power and the potential consequences that could follow?
For the critical observer, the question of when the tyrant will leave office is a rhetorical tautology (that is, the question is incapable of producing a truthful answer that can be verified or falsified). In other words, any response by the dictator to the question is unlikely to produce or convey truthful or useful information regardless of how many times it is asked. The response will always be hedged and interwoven in a fabric of deceit and absurd contingencies such as obtaining permission from the party, new leaders taking over, democracy being institutionalized and so on. Consider the following muddled and transparently evasive response:
My personal position is that I have had enough. I am arguing my case and the others are also arguing their case. I hope we will come up with some common understanding on the way forward that would not require me to resign from my party that I have fought for all my life. We are not talking about Meles only. We are talking about the old generation. The party needs to have new leadership that does not have the experience of the armed struggle…. It would be very important for everybody, particularly for the fledgling democratic institutions of this country…. The party is in the process of dialogue, and sooner or later it will make its decision, and that will be it… We have a large leadership pool, any one of whom could take the mantle… [The ethnic background of his replacement] is not a prime consideration. The party has gone beyond that…”
It is not clear from the foregoing statement why the dictator can not leave office immediately or on a date certain, or what argument he is presenting for or against leaving office. But the dictator’s uncompromising conclusory statement “I have had enough.” objectively indicates that he has reached a final and irreversible psychological state on his tenure in office. Simply stated, the dictator is completely disgusted and bored with what he is doing. He does not want to do the job anymore. But he quickly qualifies his expression of disgust by pleading to stay in power so that he “would not [be] require[d] to resign from my party that I have fought for all my life”. He feigns humility by claiming that his staying or leaving office is not about him at all. It is really about the old guards passing the baton to the new generation of leaders and so on. He hedges by implying that he can not leave office until the generational transfer of power is complete. The whole self-contradictory response reflects the solipsistic narcissism of a megalomaniacal dictator who seeks to tether not only the fate of his party to himself, but also the country’s destiny.
But the dictator’s definitive statement invites further query: He has “had enough” of what exactly? Massive violations of human rights? Kangaroo court justice? Systemic corruption? Lies? Perhaps, he has had enough of THE TRUTH!?
All of this farcical talk about leaving office does have a not-so-hidden strategic purpose. It is intended as a trial balloon to divert attention from the already-won 2010 election. The dictator hopes to fool, confuse and confound the opposition and international donors by titillating them with the possibility of his leaving office. We will predict that the dictator and his gang will be shoveling loads of propaganda between now and the already-won election of 2010 in a futile effort to distract public attention and convince donors that they are the only viable democratic alternative.
We should refrain from playing a guessing game of who will replace the dictator. We know for a fact that replacing Tweedledee with Tweedledum from another ethnic group (or replacing the old guard from the days of the armed struggle with a newer generation of their clones) will not amount to a hill of beans. The problems that have been festering in Ethiopia for the past two decades can not be cured by the departure of a bored, jaded, dispirited and weary dictator, or by his replacement clone. The problems are structural and viral in the system of dictatorial mis-governance over the past 18 years. Let’s be crystal clear: The dictator’s “retirement”, “resignation” or whatever nonsense he is talking about will not mean the beginning of the rule of law and it will not mean the end of massive human rights violations. His retirement will not end arbitrary arrests and imprisonments; the independent media will not function freely because he goes; the bantustans of ethnic federalism he created to divide and rule will not vanish immediately, and corruption will not stop. There is only one way to bring about fundamental change: Replace the one-man, one-party dictatorship with a genuine multiparty system.
No Rest for the Wicked!
There is not a single instance in the history of modern dictatorships where dictators voluntarily packed up and left power one fine morning. Dictators are to power as bloodsucking ticks are to a cow. Neither can survive without its life-giving force. There are many reasons why dictators will not leave power voluntarily. In Ethiopia, the reason is that the dictators will never outplay themselves at their own zero sum game. For them leaving power means losing everything. EVERYTHING! It means being held accountable for their monstrous crimes; losing their privileged positions in society; giving up their ill- gotten gains and the absolute power they wielded for nearly two decades.
Old dictators never fade away; they just cling to power like bloodsucking tics on a cow, until they inevitably fall. Sometimes they do run, but they can never hide. As for a “long good rest,” it is written in the Book of Isaiah (57:20, 21), that “the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”
Addis Ababa — The power shortage in Ethiopia is affecting many areas of service. Addis Ababa and large urban centers experience blackouts for three or four nights a week.
Mehret Debebe, the CEO of the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation says the outages will continue through July. Urban neighborhoods are without water, health facilities are without light and water, factories have shut down, shelves in many stores are empty and a growing number of people are without jobs.
The price of candles, lanterns and kerosene are rising every day, according to some residents.In some communities, residents complain that they are being billed for the electric power they haven’t used. The power outages frequently interrupt classes in schools, colleges and universities in many regions in Ethiopia where students follow lessons on large-screen plasma television monitors and perform research on computers. Evening classes are often plunged into darkness and cancelled.
“Because the country is going through a transforming economic growth, we are experiencing power shortages,” Mehret said. “Industries are booming, trade and the rate we are bringing electricity to rural towns created the shortage.
“We saw a 24 percent increase in demand. The problem persisted because our planned commissioning of two hydro-electric generating projects was postponed.
Minister of Energy and Mines Alemayehu Tegenu says upon completion of projects, Ethiopia not only will cover its electricity demand, but also, plans are already in place to export power to neighboring countries. “We are completing the construction of power cables that connect our hydro-electric power stations to neighboring countries,” he said.
Prime Minister Ethiopia’s tribal junta leader Meles Zenawi said, “The country is unable to curb the problem of power shortage on time, because our development partners didn’t provide us the support they had promised earlier. The shortage and the untimeliness of rain in Ethiopia is also another major factor that contributed to the problem.”
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) – The Ethiopian government Woyanne tribal junta and the Ogaden rebel group both claimed victory after weekend clashes in the east of the country, but there was no way to verify either side’s claims because of severe restrictions on reporting from the region.
Ethiopian Communication Minister Woyanne propaganda chief Bereket Simon said Monday the government had captured 60 men he described as «terrorists» trying to cross the border with Somalia, which is being riven apart by an Islamic insurgency. Simon said there were two clashes and the rebels were defeated. He declined to provide details of the fighting.
In e-mails purportedly from the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the group said they had killed 90 government troops and injured 100 others. The e-mails described battles over three days, including a number of wounded and injured in each encounter and the equipment captured. They also accused the government of executing a girl and five teenagers in the village of Kebridehar.
The e-mails also said the rebels had killed several army officers near Shilabo, 400 miles (650 kilometers) east of the capital of Addis Ababa. They said fighting was ongoing.
The rebels have been fighting for over a decade for greater autonomy for eastern Ethiopia, which is ethnically Somali. The government accuses the rebels of being terrorists funded by its archenemy Eritrea.
Verifying information from the Ogaden region is extremely difficult. The area is large, remote, difficult to navigate and certain areas, including the area in which the attack allegedly occurred, are under military occupation.
Addis Journal — The Holy Synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is set to hold an emergency meeting Monday, Addis Neger reported.
[ER sources say that Azeb Mesfin, Meles Zenawi’s wife, is backing the move by the Synod to strip most of Aba Gebremedhin’s authority (formerly known as Aba Paulos).]
The Synod is expected to look at recent actions taken by Patriarch, Abune Pauols such as ‘disbanding the recently formed executive committee, suspending the bishop the Addis Ababa Dioceses and other unlawful hiring and dismissal of church leaders’.
Chair of the Executive Committee, Abune Timoties was said to have written letter to the Federal Police asking special protection and safety to the session.
In the last Holy Synod session from May 14 -21, a landmark resolution affecting the administration of the Church endowment was passed. It was decided that the hitherto administrator, Abune Paulos, was to hand over administrative power to the committee made up of seven bishops. But the committee was disbanded by the Patriarch weeks later.
