Video: Meles Zenawi’s Somalia ‘picnic’
Meles Zenawi
U.N. says traders not responsible for price rises
By Elizabeth Blunt
BBC News
Addis Ababa — A UN report says that contrary to popular perceptions inside Ethiopia, greedy traders and speculators are not to blame for recent price rises.
The food assessment report comes just a few days after a special parliamentary session devoted to the economy, and in particular to rocketing food prices.
Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi announced the creation of a special task force to monitor and prosecute “greedy” traders.
Traders were now complaining about the farmers’ market power, the report said.
Mr Meles had accused businessmen of profiteering and exploiting the situation.
But the new report by the United Nations agencies concerned with food and agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme, says the traders are not to blame for the high prices.
Dilemma
As markets get less centralised, and farmers become more sophisticated and better informed, it says the traders are starting to complain about the market power of the farmers.
The one popular perception the report does support is that farmers are now better off, and able to wait and spread their grain sales through the year, rather than having to rush everything to market immediately after harvest when prices are at their lowest.
But the main message of the report is that grain prices in Ethiopia, however much they may have risen, however unaffordable they may be to the urban poor, are still below world prices and below prices in most neighbouring countries.
This, the report says, poses a dilemma in terms of government policy.
Buying grain locally to give to those needing emergency aid might push up domestic prices.
But while importing food from outside and giving it away or selling it cheaply could stop the price from rising, that would then encourage more and more grain to flow out across the borders to other places in the region where the price is higher.
Subsidised wheat targeted at the poorest Ethiopians costs 90 birr ($9.5) for a 50kg bag – less than half the shop price of 4 birr/kg.
14 million Ethiopians are exposed to contaminated water
(The Daily Monitor) – More than 14 million Ethiopians may be potentially at risk of fluorosis, the Ministry of Water Resources announced at a workshop on Fluorosis Mitigation Learning Exchange held from from 4- 5 March 2008 in Addis Ababa. A recent assessment of Fluoride, Fluorosis and Defluoridation issues reported that, out of those at risk, approximately 85% may have already been exposed to high fluoride contamination. Excessive fluoride is the most serious water sanitation problem, mainly in the Ethiopian Rift Valley system affecting areas in Afar, Oromia, and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and peoples regional states, including some parts of Gambela Regional State. A high level National Fluorosis Mitigation Steering Committee composed of Ministers and Heads of relevant agencies has been re-established to coordinate fluorosis mitigation efforts in Ethiopia.
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The problem is that the ministers are all too busy enriching themselves and getting drunk in their spare time. Even if they want to do some thing constructive, they are too ignorant since their only qualification is their loyalty to their puppet-master Meles Zenawi.
Lifting of grain tax may ease food burden for urban poor (IRIN)
Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Integrated Regional Information Networks
ADDIS ABABA (IRIN) – The Ethiopian government’s decision to remove some taxes on grains is unlikely to have an immediate impact on rising food prices in rural areas, where most of the consumers are actually producers, an economist said.
It may, however, ease the burden on the urban poor in several months’ time, if the government follows through on implementation.
“The fact that 85 percent of Ethiopians are living in rural areas means a reduction of value added tax and turnover tax will not have an impact on their lives,” the Ethiopian economist, who declined to be named, said.
“The reduction will probably help the urban poor; (but) the change will not be that significant,” he told IRIN in the capital, Addis Ababa. “It will take at least six months to see some changes in the grain market – with serious regulation and follow-up. However, the government does not have the capacity to do that.”
Speaking in parliament on 18 March, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said: “While our current economic development is encouraging, worsening inflation has created a difficult situation for the low-income urban dwellers.”
The government, he added, had devised temporary measures, including provision of direct and indirect subsidies, and had spent 372 million birr (US$38 million) in the past few years to subsidise wheat and 3.52bn birr ($366 million) to subsidise fuel.
“Direct subsidies have included government expenditure to stabilise fuel prices and provide wheat for low-income populations,” Meles said.
A subsidised wheat supply of 25kg every month for low-income urban dwellers was introduced in March 2007. “The current distribution of wheat will be maintained and edible oil will also be offered in a similar manner until the price of goods has been satisfactorily stabilised. We will also attempt to distribute products such as soap if deemed appropriate, depending on the circumstances.”
Apart from rising commodity prices in the international market, a significant increase in money circulation and deficiencies in the marketing system were two domestic reasons that had exacerbated inflation.
In December 2007, the Famine Early Warning Systems (Fews Net) warned that high cereal and commodity prices in Addis Ababa, and several other monitored markets, including Bahir Dar, Mekelle and Dire Dawa, would affect food security for many urban dwellers.
Market-related factors, along with chronic problems and decreased production, were expected to render an estimated eight million Ethiopians food-insecure this year, while 2.4 million acutely food-insecure people would require food and cash assistance.
“Despite some increases in income, high prices are affecting the food security of the rural and urban poor, who rely heavily on the market to purchase food,” the update noted.
Giving the example of white maize, Fews Net said the nominal retail price in Addis Ababa was 36 percent higher in 2007 compared with the 2002-2006 average.
According to the UN, 16 percent of Ethiopia’s more than 70 million people live in urban areas and the rest in rural areas. Eighty-five percent of the population are employed in agriculture.
“Overall, the increase in prices of cereals is expected to have a serious negative impact on the food security of the poor, both in urban and rural areas, who depend on the market to purchase food, though increases in wage labour are expected to enable them to cope, to some extent, with increasing prices.”
Meles Zenawi’s anti-inflation measure: More arrest
Woyanne’s solution for every thing is the barrel of the gun.
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By Peter Heinlein, VOA
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi has introduced tough measures to stabilize soaring prices, including a crackdown on what he called “economic criminals,” but he says the African nation’s economy is essentially sound. From Addis Ababa, VOA’s Peter Heinlein reports opposition leaders ridiculed the claim of economic health in a country facing drought and a massive financial scandal.
Meles Tuesday declared war on what he referred to as greedy business people, blaming them for sharp price increases that boosted Ethiopia’s inflation rate to 20 percent. In a speech to parliament, he lashed out at what he called “fraudsters” who recently caused a five to 10-fold increase in the price of salt in a single day.
Meles announced establishment of a task force to prosecute businesses engaging in what he called “persistent illegal exploitative activities.”
“Such greedy and illegal business persons will only respond when each has been identified and punished,” he said. “As a result, the government has decided to completely change its approach toward those committing economic crimes. A task force comprising members of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the federal police and the National Security and Intelligence service has been set up to permanently monitor illicit activities and take prompt legal measures as necessary.”
Meles urged all citizens to cooperate by providing information about those engaging in price gouging.
Meles also announced two other inflation fighting measures; an immediate end to sales taxes on food grains, and sharp restrictions on the growth of the money supply.
At the same time, he described Ethiopia’s economy as “healthy.” He predicted the country’s economic growth rate would top 10 percent for the fifth year in a row.
Opposition leaders questioned the claim of economic health. Lawmaker Temesgen Zewdie pointed to recent reports that nine million Ethiopians are facing drought-induced famine. He called Meles’s response “unacceptable.”
Lidetu Ayelew of the Ethiopian Democratic Party called the report of 10 percent economic growth misleading because the growth does not touch millions of impoverished people.
“There are people who are being left behind. So there’s a problem with distribution, of reaching everyone,” Lidetu said. “Therefore, the economy is not fully healthy. So someone with high blood pressure cannot be seen as fully healthy. He can fall… So if this problem is not resolved, we cannot say the economy is healthy.”
Meles shrugged off the criticisms. In his rebuttal likened Ethiopia’s economic condition to a common cold. But he acknowledged several setbacks, including a recent discovery that a significant portion of the country’s gold reserves was fake, and the arrest of several people allegedly involved in a black market money-changing scheme.
Personalizing state power in Ethiopia
By Hadaro Arele
Throughout the 1990s, the international donor community supported Ethiopia as a country that embarked on a democratic path almost after 2 decades of socialist military rule. The country’s achievement, so it was said, was both economic and political. Economically the ‘new government’ has taken some steps towards liberal and market oriented system. Politically, Zenawi fooled the world with his rhetoric and thus naively labelled progressive leader.
International community invested in the regime’s constitution-making process that led to its adoption in 1995. The constitution theoretically set up a number of democratic rights for its citizens. Defiant of the absence of separation of power between the legislative, the executive and the judiciary, and omission of the duration of the term of office for the Prime Minster, the constitution has taken a reverse track. Ethiopia today is governed under a system of one-man rule engineered by Meles Zenawi, who has now been in power for the last 17 years by suppressing all forms of democratic voice.
The problem is getting worse by the legacy of international donors’ condone because the regime violates its constitution, bans free press, crackdown on peaceful demonstrations, and rigs national election. By pouring in a huge sum to pay for state spending on military apparatus and infrastructure, these donors has helped the regime to consolidate its power and suppresses the opposition. Moreover, the subsidies from donors allow the regime to direct more of its own revenue into expanding its huge patronage schemes, making Zenawi depend increasingly for his political survival on continued financial and diplomatic support from his foreign donors although his regime has continued dishonouring its promises.
Yet there is a ray of hope in this seemingly hopeless situation. The regime’s corruption, violence and vast patronage ate away economic resources. This undermined its ability to function properly in the long term because it destroyed the economic foundations of the regime’s political survival. To date the regime has been saved from this grim prospect by foreign aid donors. If the international donors pulled the plug, the regime could no longer be shielded from the consequence of its own mischief, and would have to bend to democratic pressure.
The regime has established all-round strategy to personalize its power at the expense of the Ethiopian people. The adoption of structural adjustment—liberalization, deregulation, devaluation, and privatization in the 1990s blatantly served the interest of the regime not of the people. It has created surrogate institutions that appeared to represent private sector, but in reality remained subservient to the regime. As Zenawi’s antidemocratic sentiment gathered momentum, the business class has mostly become a bystander and left the struggle for democracy aside. Such oblivious nature of private sector only leads to personalization of power. As a result, the regime has become the largest owner of industries and businesses as well as its biggest employer. Investment is consolidated in the hands of the regime so much so that the best way to get into business and be part of the looting is to deal with the regime itself. Virtually, the praised programs — liberalization, privatization, devaluation and devolution are all remained on paper without practice. The reality is that public access to basic social services is significantly diminishing; unemployment is rising, inequality is being widened thus making the poor poorer, and the regime richer.
The educated middle class, instead of opposing the regime like other middle class citizens in other parts of the world, has chosen to flee the country, leaving Zenawi largely unopposed as he consolidated his personal rule. Other professionals who remained in the country are integrated into his patronage network. Some others are employed in NGOs, which is highly censored by the regime too.
Why has this been happening? The answer lies in the regime’s use of force and intimidation on the one hand and its manipulation of patronage on the other. Zenawi has always sought to use the army to build his personal political base. He employs violence sparingly and selectively – as a tacit instrument when the political process fails to yield before his requirements or the opposition appears to need whipping into submission. For instance, the regime waged hefty war with Eriteria from 1998 – 2000, which was responsible for about 70,000 lives and wastage of billions of dollars. The same massacres were extended into Oromia, Gambella, Sidama, and sovereign state–Somalia. Furthermore, Zenawi’s success in consolidating his power and stifling democracy emanates from his knack for integrating large chunks of the ‘political’ class into his vast patronage empire. Patronage, typically in the form of government contracts, tenders, and jobs, to bribe business communities, low skilled personnel and bilateral corporations at the expense of the nation.
In an effort to direct the attention of international donors, Zenawi’s government promised to hold a free and fair election with multiparty political competition in 2005. Nonetheless, many international election observers have proved that the opening of multiparty contest was just the icing on the cake. The government had long been engaged in practices both official and unofficial that rendered constitutional guarantees impotent. The election was rigged and manoeuvred by the incumbent party and its cronies, which revealed the true nature of the regime. The point of change was to strengthen the Prime Minister while enfeebling the institutions that might act as a check upon him. The government manoeuvred the election result by such fraudulent means as bribery, blackmail, naked intimidation, and use of excessive forces. With the skids thus greased, the re-election of constituencies filed for supposed irregularity glided through easily, opening the door for the ruling party to hammer aggressively the democratic voices. Election, in Ethiopia – as in most of Africa – are invariably marred by the executive, and the fact that no definite term is fixed in the constitution for the prime Minster’s term of office, the future of democracy looks bleak.
After his attempt to mislead the world community by holding the so-called free and fair election, the regime launched another weapon to divert the world leaders – ‘robust economic growth as proof that poverty is declining in the country because of good governance’. However, the statistics by which indicators of such economic growth derived were far from being credible. In addition to ignoring social and environmental degradation from the equation, the statistics failed to address the long-term problems.
To improve his chance for success, Zenawi also exploited local councils to build its oppressive organizational infrastructure, cajoled leaders from opposition parties to join its own gambling polity. The decentralization of the budget to a district level to a certain degree gave the local officials an economic reason to work for Zenawi although, armed coercion made them fearful of what would happen if they broke with Zenawi’s agenda of power usurpation.
In conclusion, the worst obstacle to democratic development in Ethiopia has been the personalization of state power. The military and economic aids from abroad were used to selectively suppress dissents. The money sluices through a massive patronage machine that Zenawi uses to recruit support, reward loyalty, and buy off actual and potential opponents. In his effort to personalize the state further, Zenawi has skilfully undermined formal institutions of governance, preferring as he does to use highly arbitrary and informal methods of recruiting and rewarding officials. Above all, the absence of clear separation between the branches of government allowed the emergence of a very strong and an out of control executive resulting in such tyrant one-man regime. The way out could be building institutions that democracy requires, reworking the constitution, and then encouraging mass-political participation and unfettered electoral competition. This demands however, backing and stand staunchly with determined political oppositions as they struggle to empower the people, who should be the sovereign authority in Ethiopia, not the elite that came to power by force and is staying on it against their will by force. When elections are held in an institutional wasteland like Ethiopia, say in 2010 political competition typically coalesces around and entrenches the ethnic and sectarian divisions created by Zenawi as usual. The implication is that, not only is the one- man rule legitimized, but also subsequent efforts to democratize the country will be more difficult and more violent than ever.
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The author, Hadaro Arele, can be reached at [email protected]