The Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America (ESFNA) has taken a positive step on Thursday to correct its blunder by accepting $300,000 in donation from Woyanne businessman Ato Al Amoudi, a drunkard womanizer and a thief who calls himself “sheik.” (DLA Piper, take that to the court.)
ESFNA president Dawit Agonafer and public relation officer Fassil Abebe had called a press conference at the RFK Stadium in Washington DC on Thursday afternoon to answer questions about the controversy surrounding the donation from Al Amoudi.
Over 20 representatives of the media, including EthiopianReview.com associates, went to the press conference. The two top ESFNA officials have admitted that it was a mistake to receive the donation and that in the future they will be careful NOT to make such a mistake.
Both Ato Dawit and Ato Fassil have presented themselves in a professional and humble manner, and answered all questions with apparent sincerity. Their professional approach and admitting mistake from the outset disarmed all members of the media who went to the press conference to strongly challenge and confront them. Our arrogant, stupid, self-destructive politicians should learn from these two ESFNA officials how to handle crisis and address concerns of the public.
Al Amoudi’s photo was also removed from the stadium on Thursday after disgracing the annual event since Sunday.
The ESFNA officials explained that the money was received without the knowledge of the majority of the Federation’s executives. They said that an interview with one of the Federation’s officials on the VOA Radio broadcast to Ethiopia where he thanked Al Amoudi was uncalled.
Regarding questions about financial corruption, Ato Dawit said from now on the Federation’s financial books will be open to the public for inspection.
ER congratulates the Federation for taking these first positives steps, even though they are a little too late to save this week’s event since only two days (Friday and Saturday) left before it’s concluded.
The Federation needs to take further step and expel from the Federation the culprits, vice president Eyaya Arega, Secretary Samuel Abate, and board member Sebsibe Assefa, who have brought shame to the organization by trying to associate it with a criminal who is helping the Meles dictatorship to brutalize and terrorize the people of Ethiopia and Somalia.
The Federation needs to also keep its promise that it will root out corruption from its midst by instituting a transparent financial accounting system that is open for public inspection.
This is a victory for patriotic Ethiopians in the Diaspora, and a defeat for Woyanne and its hodam servants like Eyaya, Sebsibe and gang.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Woyanne-run Walta Information Center (WIC) and other Woyanne media continue to refer to Meles Zenawi’s wife, Azebe Mesfin, as ‘first lady’ (referred to others as ‘First Witch’). But it is President Girma’s wife who should have been called “first lady,” not the prime minister’s wife. No other country where there is a president the prime minister’s wife is called first lady. On another note, Azeb Mesfin is one of the most hated persons in Ethiopia next to her husband Meles. In a matter of few years, she has become perhaps the wealthiest women in Africa through corruption. Most of the profitable companies in Ethiopia share their profits with her. She heavily invests the money she steals from Ethiopia in the U.S. real estate market. She is buying houses and commercial properties in several states, including Washington DC, Ohio, California, and Arizona.
ADDIS ABABA (WIC) – First Lady Azeb Mesfin is elected president of the Organization of African First Ladies (OAFLA).
[It should be named OAFB — Organization of African First Bitches — who are partners in their husbands’ crimes.]
According to a press release issued by National Coalition for Women Against HIV/AIDS (NCWH), the first lady was elected on the OAFLA General Assembly held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt from June 29 to July 1, 2008.
With the election of Azeb, the secretariat for OAFLA will now move to Addis Ababa from Lusaka. The outgoing First Lady of Zambia served as president for the last two years.
First Lady of Libya, Madam Safia Gadaffi, was elected vice president, the release added.
OALFA was established on 8th July 2002 as a result of the Geneva special meeting attended by thirty-seven African First Ladies, it was learnt.
I understand some of you might get confused with my name; I am an Ethiopian from Italian father and an Ethiopian mother.
I grew up and completed my high school education in Dessie and later at Menilik II comprehensive high school in Addis Ababa, before I left for Italy to complete my higher education. I speak a somewhat good Amharic and these few years I went to Ethiopia twice in the hope of returning something back to the country which gave me a lot. I traveled for the millennium celebration and again this year before the drought become headline news in Italy.
I am writing my eye witness account and relate it to the recent categorization of Ethiopia as a failed state, under ‘Failed States Index Scores 2008’ by The Mission of The Fund for Peace group.
I have interviewed many people and seen multiple places and based on my personal assessment, Ethiopia is a failed state only a single disaster away.
It is futile to compare Ethiopia with Zimbabwe or Eretria and try to present it in a fair light, but the fact of the matter is we Ethiopians do not enjoy the homogeneity that is prevalent in those countries. President Mugabe’s party may collapse next month but Zimbabwe will be available for its citizens after the dust settles.
Ethiopia is a unique country and if and when TPLF decides to call it a day and becomes an independent African state, Ethiopia, as we know it today, would struggle to exist. I do apologize for my conspiratorial claims but here are a few facts I have gathered in those two visits to the country.
EPRDF or TPLF is a party which has been working to weaken the rest of the country through various policies. If you pick the education policy alone, one cannot fail to notice the rest of the country has never produced a viable Economic force for the last two decades due to their insistence of higher emphasis to local languages, as a result of which, only students from Tigray region can speak English to qualify for any type of scholarship or have an opportunity to work in foreign legions and they are the ones welding power in every region in the name of ‘federal officers assisting the regional government’.
The local Universities are also designed to cripple the new generation by producing “PhDs and Masters” by quota system out of the thin air, in great disregard to the quality of a human work force, and it is a sad reality to see policy makers talking about meaningless statistics by comparing the number of PhDs before and after EPRDF. This coupled with contestant harassment of intellectuals, who are challenging these failed policies, into leaving the country is another way to the realization of a government force full of mediocre talents only guided by hate and greed.
I met a number of people with Ph.D. working for the government offices which has nothing to do with their field of studies. This failure is not by lack of manpower or understanding. It looks like it is by a careful design to weaken the next generation.
Before visiting Ethiopia, I always thought that, there got to be a misunderstanding somewhere and the government needed some logistical support to make things better. I myself with a company in Barri- Italy, volunteered for a water resource developing project in the central Amhara region. The drinking water, fetched from a mile away transported by the backs of women and small children, was a source of many bacterial contaminations, but it did not take us to know that no such efforts are needed anywhere unless we pass a rigorous test of bribes equal to Mafioso extortions. We left the country after being ransacked through endless bribery.
The other main issue is the TPLF total disregard to the rule of law and contempt to the Parliament members and the people in general. A case in point is the recent border treaty with Sudan. If there was an independent jury in that country, the Premier would have been impeached for such conduct and the whole cabinet would have been dissolved. But unfortunately the same people are prosecutors, jury and executioners in that country with no check and balance whatsoever. Besides, there has been too much admiration to some of these politicians who have shown particular skill in lying, so much so that, they have now institutionalized the destruction of public ethics, elevating deceit to a statecraft or a talent required to lead that country.
Tigray, which was once a land-locked state, now has extended its border to Sudan by taking some fertile land from Gondar, and according to some information, that is the contingency plan or the end goal if their days of glory comes to an end. It is believed to be a carefully crafted path to their next move after throwing flames to the rest of the country.
In this whole mischievous game, the innocent Tigray people are victims of few high-powered TPLF cadres. The case in point is Seye Abraha, who has never failed in pointing out the problem with the TPLF. He recently spoke heroically on the unilateral border deal with the government of Sudan sighting shortsightedness on the part of the prime minister. Again, he was talking to group of journalists a few days ago, on the importance of working with the coalition of opposition parties to council and save the country from a planned destruction by TPLF. If he survives the next two years, Seye Abraha would be the only chance for the Tigray population to live with the rest of Ethiopians in dignity.
I have followed very interesting interviews on VOA regarding the border deal with Sudan, but there was no reaction from the Diaspora Ethiopians.
If it continues this on this path, the country would become another Yugoslavia. Currently the government of Ethiopia is in big trouble. Their dollar reserve is low, mainly because of unabated corruption and illegal export of wealth. The country is going down the path of abject poverty and the only people whom you see eating 3 times a day are those who have relatives in the west or those who are entitled to stealing from the public fund. They are currently trying to convert the draught into gaining some form of sympathy for themselves, but it did not work so far. There is no one in the world who has not been fooled by TPLF, at least twice. They have over used every card known in politics and now they have to hire a lobbyists abroad to defend themselves; which is a sign of desperation and inability to stand on their own.
I am also aware of a group in Italy who are currently tracking the country’s wealth in foreign banks under the assumed names/numbers of these corrupt individuals and it won’t be long before we hear a full disclosure on this matter.
It is only in Ethiopia you hear a theft of national gold reserve from a bank vault and it is treated as a normal ‘burglary’. If it was anywhere else in the world, you would have seen the whole cabinet dissolving through a vote of no-confidence. Not in Ethiopia.
It is only the government in the world, whose official delegations are still defecting. After being in power for two decades, it cannot convince anyone to stay aboard and work toward a common ideal. Because, there is no common ideal. Only the TPLF agenda served at all the embassies and foreign legions are filled with ailing and mentally decapitated ambassadors who cannot engage the Ethiopians in Diaspora, or bring a change on foreign relations other than serving the TPLF dignitaries and their royal followers to enrich themselves.
The regional elected officials, which are effectively hostages of TPLF cadres in those areas, have been crippled through blackmail and intimidation and do not have any choice but to turn a blind eye for organized robbery by TPLF cadres sitting in those regions as ‘federal officers’. This is what would be fueling the secession movements in every part of the country, in the coming years, which is, of course, seems a part of the end game for the EPRDF/TPLF.
During my last visit I met this loan officer from Ethiopian National Bank and he told me his frustration with the whole system. According to this Ethiopian, the TPLF cadres and their subordinates owe millions of dollars in debt and there is no end to their demand for additional loans and his strict obligation to approve which comes to his desk through certain channels, regardless of their defaults. There is no concern of inflation/deflation and above all there is no public accounting office to explain which wealth belongs to the country and which belongs to the party. TPLF, I learned, ordered confiscations of all vehicles, including type writers from the offices of the City Hall in Addis Ababa, when they lost the election in 2005.
This time, with the heroic engagement from such people like Seye, Berhanu, Negasso, Bertukan and the likes we have that rare chance in history to save that country from becoming a history. We should not fail these individuals or the people just by becoming spectators. There is too much at stake. It is not which party is ruling when, it is a matter of having a country for your children or not.
I want to tell those of you who advocate peaceful negations with the current TPLF rulers: They lived by the sword and they would rather die by the sword than working for a peaceful means. Unless you force them through various ways, including intensive campaigns in the Senates and Congress of these donor nations and keep on exposing their sham rules, it is futile to expect anything Ethiopians from them.
If you love your country like I do, let us march and support all campaigns and initiatives to remove these hateful and deceitful people from power. My father fought Mussolini and lived in Ethiopia until his death and there was nothing gratifying for him to have seen the defeat of Mussolini and fascism in his lifetime; and to me EPRDF/TPLF is no better than Mussolini and they deserve our unified efforts in exposing and removing their grip on Tigray and their planned destruction of Ethiopia as we know it today.
Ethiopia is a failed state and accepting its failed status is the first thing on our part, which would give us a clear vision to engage the real enemy. It also help us to understand the capacity and goal of these mediocre over-appraised tyrants who have been in power for two decades through deception and sheer luck of having a very fragmented opposition. From now on, it should not matter who rules Ethiopia next, as long as there is an Ethiopia!
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I have plans to visit some Italian-American congress members in New York area for this July 4th celebration and in the coming weeks and I will be passing my messages to all that I come in contact with. I want to show some of my materials to the U.S. Senators who are in the way of HR 2003 to bring them aboard. You can reach me at [email protected].
Sanitation in Ethiopia’s capital city leaves a lot to be desired – and it is the poor who are most vulnerable as a result.
In a small shack made of iron sheets and pieces of clothing in the slums of Addis Ababa live the Alemu family – Abiy, Marasit Bishaw, and the couple’s three-year-old son and 25-day-old baby daughter Yanit.
And just a few metres from their one-room home is a mass of sewage and garbage, mixed with the carcasses of dead chickens and cow and goat skulls.
The Alemus live near the gully where the Kabena river used to meander gracefully through the Ethiopian capital.
But the river is now full of the city’s waste, and a stench of sewage is the first thing that hits.
During the rainy season, the filth and sewage from the skyscrapers up the hill flows freely onto the floor of the house.
A sewer by the entrance jets waste water incessantly, sending a gush of greying liquid down into the river.
The situation is typical of many in the slums of Ethiopia’s capital, and highlights a desperate need for clean water.
Defecating outside
The government is aware of the problem, admitting that dilapidated sewers, a lack of toilet facilities and general poor sanitation in the city are some of the leading causes of disease and death in the country.
The World Health Organization estimates that 64% of people in Ethiopia defecate in the open – although this is down from 91% in 1990.
Water is critical. With a new baby, the Alumus’ household water needs have increased – they spend the equivalent of 10 US cents a day to buy 50 litres of water which has to be fetched from a kilometre across the river.
But even the water they buy may not be clean enough to keep the family healthy. Burst pipes or a lack of constant pressure in the pipes can contaminate the water.
And the jerry cans used to fetch the water are often unclean, says Gadissa Hailu, a project officer for Water and Sanitation for Africa Medical and Research Foundation (Amref).
“People need to be educated on how to take good care of the water they fetch to avoid contamination,” he says.
Worryingly, though, the Alemus do not boil the water since they believe that it is clean simply because it is piped.
But they fear for the health of their children, especially the infant.
Yosef Asfau, a general practitioner working at a hospital in the city, says that the constant stench hanging over the house is likely to cause rhinitis (allergy of the nose), sinusitis (allergy of the sinus) and an even more serious condition called bronchial asthma.
Just next to the Alemu household, young men openly bathe in the filthy water, scooping it with their hands. For those even worse off, there is no way of accessing piped water – the river is their only option to attempt to keep clean.
No man’s land
Further downstream lies a settlement called Gorgorios. At the bottom of a quick-sloping hill, numerous tributaries of sewage have joined the river and turned it into a raging and black mass of water.
Here no-one has a toilet.
Children and adults relieve themselves in the open by the river, adding to the furious flow of filth that is carried to other communities downstream.
Endale Asmare, a lab technician with Amref in the slum, says that waterborne diseases such as typhoid and parasites that cause dysentery consistently show up in his laboratory tests – a clear manifestation of poor sanitation in the area.
In the town of Kechene, a little further downstream, is Amleworke Wordfa – an 80-year-old woman who shoulders the difficult task of raising her four grandchildren alone.
A year ago she lost one of her granddaughters to illness resulting from contaminated water.
“It was so hard for me to see her die,” she says.
“She was so beautiful.”
Now Wordfa attempts to boil all the water she gives to the younger two of her four surviving grandchildren, who are under five years of age.
Nonetheless, fuel to do so is scarce. At times she just trusts their immunity, acquired through time, to keep them from getting sick.
The government says the situation is steadily improving: regional heath authorities are reporting better access to sanitation, while 30,000 key health workers are expected to be deployed in 2009 to promote personal hygiene as part of a campaign by the health department.
The UN has declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation, and Amref is working on a plan to provide water and sanitation facilities to the people of Kechene.
But as long as extreme poverty in this country persists, families like the Alemus and the Wordfas will continue to live in a filthy no man’s land on the banks of Addis Ababa’s rivers.
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Ernest Waititu is the editor-in-chief of the Afrikanews group based in Nairobi.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – ZTE Corp, China’s second-largest telecoms gear maker, said on Wednesday it has agreed to build a national network in Ethiopia.
The network, which will allow Ethiopia Telecommunications Corp to provide next-generation network services, will cover 14 major cities in the east African country including the capital, Addis Ababa, ZTE said in a statement.
ZTE had already won a deal last year to help ETC build an Internet protocol backbone network, the Chinese firm said.
Chinese telecoms gear makers such as ZTE and local rival Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] have made strides in recent years into more mature markets, and have long been established in emerging areas such as India and Africa.
(Reporting by Sophie Taylor; Editing by Keiron Henderson)
ADDIS ABABA — The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) has sacked Almaz Moges from her post as General Manager of the turbulent Nile Insurance.
Getahun Nana, Banking and Insurance Supervision Department head, wrote a letter to Nile on June 19, 2008, informing them that her deputy, Dawit G. Amanuel, would take over the post. It is alleged, however, that she refused to hand over the office to her successor. The central bank subsequently shut down the office on Thursday, June 26, 2008.
The letter came a week after the central bank declined to approve two of the seven newly elected members of the Board of Directors. Almaz had been advised by officials at the NBE that the insurance company needed better management. Currently, the company is in debt for more than 50 million Br following various business deals.
The newly appointed Dawit is a familiar face in the insurance industry, with 24 years of experience under his belt, 15 years of which have been in a managerial position. He has a first degree in Accounting from Addis Abeba University (AAU), and is a chartered insurer with the ACII, a British insurance institute. In addition, he has a Diploma in Law, and is currently attending classes at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) to become a chartered accountant.
Before his appointment as the General Manager two weeks ago, he was Administration and Finance Head and Deputy General Manager of Nile. He joined the company in April this year. Dawit spent almost his entire professional life at the Ethiopian Insurance Corporation (EIC). In the years spent at the state-owned insurance company, he served as Deputy Managing Director for six years, and Reinsurance Department Manager for five years. Before his departure from the EIC in April, he had been one of the top-level managers since 2001.
His predecessor at Nile, Almaz, has served the company for over two years. The major reason for her dismissal is her alleged failure to end the seven-year old business dispute between Nile and Tana Transport Plc, Star Business Group and others, sources disclosed.
Nile had given a financial guarantee bond for a sum of 15 million Br when Tana Transport bought 100 IVECO trucks (380 E 37M model) from the Automotive Manufacturing Company of Ethiopia (AMCE). In addition, Nile Insurance issued other bonds for the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) and Abyssinia Bank. Combined, these bonds allegedly placed the insurance corporation into debt of up to a total of 52 million Br. Of this amount, 35 million Br and 17 million Br is owed to Star Business Group and Temesgen Mehari, a returnee businessman from the United States, respectively. Star Business and Temesgen also have four million Br and six million Br shares, respectively at Nile Insurance.
Established 13 years ago, Nile has a capital of 40 million Br.
Attempts by Fortune to get Almaz Moges to comment on the dismissal were unsuccessful.
