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Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa turns dark

Most parts of Addis Ababa are currently out of electric light three days a week, according to Ethiopian Review sources. Several business are forced to shut down their operations.

Addis Ababa is also hit with shortage of water. Tens of thousands of houses are with out tap water. People are seen carrying water jugs in the streets.

Ethiopia’s capital is run by Meles Zenawi’s puppet named Kuma Demeksa who is busy doing his own business and taking money out of the country rather than administering the city. He is too dumb to administer a city any way.

27 thoughts on “Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa turns dark

  1. The regime is crying that he is going to export hydro-electric power to neighbouring countries, while it repeatedly fails to satisfy domestic need. People in Addis Ababa and other major towns are suffering frm acute shortage of electricity & water, weak mobile network, internet services. Who is going to tell Meles: RESIGN IMMEDIATELY?!

  2. Selam Elias,

    As for Addis, the reason for the shortage of power is simple, we didn’t have enough power plants. Once the Gibe project is complete, that problem should be allivated. As for water, we are poor countries we didn’t build dams. We mostly rely on rain water. As you may know, we are not getting as much rain as we used to.

    Danny

  3. this is not new 4 Ethiopia .this is counting at least more than a decade.this should be the best example which has no best reason in spite of hope 4 the future

  4. What can I say Elias, Ethiopia is getting exposed to more misery under the cancerous Weyane. God bless Ethiopia it shall be saved by its true sons and daughters, not by a subservient ruler whose allegiance is only to the highest bidder. I am Eritrean who always wish well for Ethiopia’s unity and self sufficiency. What a shame a country endowed with 7 lakes and 14 rivers is unable to harness its natural resource. Look at Egypt, their only source of survival is the river Nile and thriving of it. It is a shame, due to luck of a visionary leaders Ethiopia is wasting the precious resource on hand.

  5. Forget Addis Ababa since the ethno-fascists do not want to develop and modernize it. The ethno-fascists use Ethiopian resources to build Tigray and Mekele which is now a buzzling city.

  6. ….Rome is not built in one day;Ethiopia is enjoying a healthy economic progress.shortage of electric power and shortage of water are small prices to paid by our generation in order to make a better futur for our children.It is very unjust to compare Addis and asmara;…and the mengistu regime and the present government…They are extremly uncompareble…

  7. That Ethiopia is marching back to the middle ages by all measures since the TPLF assumed monopolistic minority dictatorial power is just real fact of life whether we believe it or not. The worst is still to come!

    That we point fingers at this or that small official under the crushing command of the dictatorship whether that individual is DUMB or NIB is of secondary importance and may only divert attention from the main issue which is the TPLF’s minority system of dictatorship. :)

  8. When they entered by force to Addis, the price of cement was less than 20 birr. Their first move was to weaken the existing cement factory and build the new one in Tigry calling it Mosob. When they started to produce cement in Tigry, intentionally they speculated the market and the price of cement reached more than 300 birr today.
    Their next and very devastated move was building a hydroelectric power on Tekeze river which is located in the worst Gorge, the area has shortage of rain and during the summer it gets almost dry. The project costs more than 3.2 billion Birr and yet after many years, it is not started functioning. After many sacrifices have been paid, they have discovered that it was not what they were planed and looking from this very costly project. Everything is under their say and now they are looking another alternative.

    Right now they are barking to build wind energy again in Tigry with borrowed money in the name of Ethiopia amounted 210 million dollar plus unknown billion of birr from Ethiopian national bank which is totally controlled by them. As the Tekeze dam is already there, it had to be very essential and the right thing to do building the wind energy around Addis which is the very important place of the nation. However; they don’t care what happens to the rest of Ethiopia, but Tigry.

    They are exploiting the entire nation in the name Endowment Tigry and EFFORT with direct involvement from the palace including the so called the Tigry First Lady. Look what has been done in Tigry for the last 18 years and what is going on the rest of Ethiopia. Any development going on the rest of Ethiopia is against their which unable to stop it. Addis Ababa which is the centre of the nation is becoming dark while Tigry which is the worst place to live and make a living and the end of the country is getting light day and night along side all sectors of development activities. All key positions the nations has is in their hands and they can do what they want.

    Lets Allah register everything illegal and unacceptable. And with your permission it will be answered accordingly.

  9. there is no reason to accuse kuma damaqsa, when the main player is WOYANEE. To me he is a slave who has no power to do some-thing. We all know the cause of the problem it will be better to find the solution together. Pointing a finger is not a solution

  10. የኢትዮ መብራት ሐይል ባለስልጣን ጥሩ ባልሞያዎች ስለሌሉት ይህ ችግር በዐጭር ግዜ ውስጥ የሚፈታ ዐይደለም;; ጥራት የሌልው የኤሌክትሪክ ዋየር ስለሚጠቀሙ; በተጨማሪም ሳራቸውን: ጥራት ባልው ሁኔታ ስለማያከናውኑ; መፍትሄ: በውቅቱ ካልተፈታ; ምንም ውጤት አንደማይኑር ; አወቁ::

  11. We can’t expect anything good from weyane while they are in power. Bika (woyane messanger) says “Rome is not built in one day.” What the hell u talking about? We haven’t seen anything better, things are even worse for twenty years of woyane government. So bika you mean woyane needs a century or more to get 24 hours power to the capital? Shame on you and woyane officials.

  12. Ahmed,
    You claim that no water in Tekeze, and at the same time you say wind farm near Addis. It is completely nonsense. Wind farm where there is wind!

    Because of the off-shore wind from the red sea, the areas around mekelle have a strong wind from october to March. That is something one should exploit.

    There is also very strong wind in Afar and Somalia provinces all season except in the summer. This something we need to exploit for wind farming too.

    I think it would be unfair to criticize this Gov’t in infrastructure expansion, in health and education distribution, though the quality is low.

    The only low points are democracy,job and power hegemony! Who in his right mind gives power to people like Elias anyway? lol

  13. Eighteen years of TPLF rule should have prepared us to expect this and worse.
    Every sector of the country has been pillaged and the required services are systematically denied and neglected let alone incurring new capital investement to upgrade them and keep them running.

  14. After 18 years in power, serious moves are afoot to renew the leadership of the ruling EPRDF

    Change is coming to Ethiopia, says Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. It was time the country’s political old guard stepped down, he told Africa Confidential in an interview on 3 May. Meles has submitted his resignation and the ruling party discussed it in February – but that does not make it inevitable. If there is a change, it would be more of personnel than policy, he suggested. The issue was not that the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front had ruled for 18 years but that ‘the same people have been in positions of leadership throughout the period’. He included himself in ‘the old leadership which was leading the EPRDF during the armed struggle and up to now’.

    When asked if he was expecting ‘a collective transition’, Meles replied, ‘Yes, I think that the next crucial step needs to be taken,’ implying that the older generation faced retirement. Meles has recently repeated that he would like to step down by the next elections. This statement has been greeted with scepticism. He had been less forthright about renewing the leadership – a message that many of his colleagues will not welcome. The EPRDF has ruled since 1991 and many leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the main party in its four-party coalition, have been in positions of power since they took up arms in 1975. No names have officially been named.

    Any changes on this scale require an EPRDF congress. Several options would open up regarding Meles’ successor (see Box). ‘The generation that moved the mountains’, as the war veterans that defeated Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam’s regime are known, may be growing tired. It seems unlikely that a collective transition could pass unopposed: some in the EPRDF might feel they should take over if Meles left office.

    Opposition could also come from closer to home: the Premier’s wife, Azeb Mesfin, is now in a controlling position at the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray. She might not relish a diminution of her growing political role, even for the sake of the ruling party’s political health.

    Leading potential candidates include Seyoum Mesfin, Abay Tsehaye, Addisu Legesse, Tewodros Adhanom and Arkebe Oqubay. All are Tigrayan: ethnicity is an important bargaining chip in this diverse society and despite representing the major nationalities, the EPRDF is dominated by Tigrayans, even though they are nationally outnumbered by both Amharas and Oromo. There are those who think a Tigrayan successor to Meles could widen ethnic divisions that the EPRDF has never been able fully to close.

    No consensus
    The question of succession may be largely academic. Leaving the final decision on Meles’s resignation to the party offers plenty of room for a change of face. The issue was raised at the quarterly EPRDF Executive Committee meeting in February, attended by an equal number of representatives from each member party: the TPLF, Amhara National Democratic Movement (both EPRDF founding members), Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation and Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Movement.

    There was heated discussion but no consensus. Meles’s recognition of the need to rejuvenate the EPRDF as a whole demonstrates that he understands the need for a show of democratic change. A new party leader would set an important precedent and mark the first-ever peaceful and voluntary handover of power in Ethiopia.

    However, a change of age group might not trigger a change of attitude. Tewodros would ostensibly constitute a departure from the traditional leadership; he was not involved in the student movement and played no part in the liberation struggle, yet he is very close to Meles and would provide no real change of direction. Arkebe took part in the liberation struggle, albeit for less time than others of the old guard, yet he retains more political independence than might be expected.

    In any event, the EPRDF has begun to prepare actively for the elections. The government has organised talks on procedure: it is keen to avoid the violence and other problems of 2005, when an impressive pre-electoral process was marred by post-poll violence, followed by the refusal of some elected opposition members to take their seats in Parliament. The opposition has already said that it does not expect a fair deal but although still much divided, some elements have begun organising.

    The major challenge may come from the Forum (Medrek) for Democratic Dialogue in Ethiopia (FDDE), an alliance of parties established by former Defence Minister Siye Abraha and former President Negasso Gidada. A central element in the Forum is the Arena Tigray for Democracy and Sovereignty, under Gebru Asrat, an opposition party in Tigray Region which threatens the TPLF in its own heartland.

    The other parties in Forum include: Ethiopian Democratic Unity Movement; Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, led by member of parliament Bulcha Demeksa; Somali Democratic Alliance Forces; the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, which consists of the Ethiopian Social Democratic Party and Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Congress (both chaired by Beyene Petros, MP), plus the Oromo People’s Congress of MP Merara Gudina; and Union for Democracy and Justice (UDJ), chaired by Birtukan Mideksa.

    These parties have all agreed to contest the elections under the Medrek banner while maintaining their own structures and leaders. They thus hope to avoid a collapse like that of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy in 2005. The CUD had never been much more than a veil covering major policy disagreements and competing ambitions; its leaders’ inability to put aside these ambitions lost it many supporters. The need for an effective coalition is pressing.

    A group of former CUD members led by Birtukan set up the UDJ, which is now in the Forum. Former CUD Chairman Hailu Shawel, who refuses to have anything to do with his former colleagues, has formed the All Ethiopia Unity Party. Yet another splinter, led by Ayele Chamiso, has kept the CUD name. The United Ethiopian Democratic Party-Medhin is renamed the Ethiopian Democratic Party. It is still led by Lidetu Ayelew, who caused its split with the CUD after a confrontation with Hailu Shawel.

    Ginbot 7 was founded last year in the diaspora and is not registered in Ethiopia. It is led by Berhanu Nega, the only opposition leader to leave Ethiopia after oppositionists were pardoned in 2007. The 24 April arrests have raised its profile (AC Vol 50 No 9). Most ex-CUD parties suffer from the widespread disenchantment about their infighting; it is uncertain how much support they will get.

    Opposition fractures are visible, despite the fledgling alliances. Where power is fiercely contested, this is dangerous. Many oppositionists have little faith that the government will really address their concerns: expanding political freedom; freeing all political prisoners; press freedom and equal media access; neutrality for the National Electoral Board; full and independent judiciary; and freedom of expression. Yet without a concerted attempt at organisation, none of the opposition parties can hope for a favourable outcome to the 2010 elections.

    In 2005, the EPRDF made the telling point that the opposition criticised the government but never came up with any serious alternative policies. However, Meles’ government has done little to address opposition concerns, then or since. The government has stressed that it is keen to avoid any of the violence that haunted the 2005 elections. This requires dialogue with the opposition and addressing the issues involved in building a democratic system.

    Africa Confidential interviews Prime Minister Meles of Ethiopia

  15. According to Meles lies, “Hydroelectric power will be exported to SUdan, but Most parts of Addis Ababa are currently out of electric light three days a week.

    Meles is always lying.

    God Bless Ethiopia !!!

  16. It is not surprising if there is short of power that couldn’t cope up with the rapid development so stop crying and wish for the best of your country.

  17. What Addis needs is not the shortage of electric power but the real shortage of power – the power of Meles Seitanawi – that can be easily replaced by the power of a democratically elected person. The generators of such an overwhelming power are not the Gibe III and the Awash River or the Abay River but the people of Ethiopia themselves.

  18. this is an indication that EPDRF wll soon fall. but i affraid thatif she continues like this, since addis is not only for us but all africans, she may miss being the capital of africa.

  19. Having conducted an engineering review of Gibe III, it is not a certainty that the facility will ever be in a position to supply electricity to Addis.

    Whereas Ethiopia certainly deserves to have more power from its hydro resources, the current policies for achieving greater power generation do not appear aimed in that direction.

    Ethiopia is not such a rich country where it can afford to continue on its current path. Better to plan and implement hydro projects using standard approaches.

    http://www.slideshare.net/anthony_mitchell/gilgel-gibe-iii-hydroelectric-dam-ethiopia-technical-engineering-and-economic-feasibility-study-report

  20. These stinky Woyanes deprived our Addis Ababa city of basic necessities like Water and electricity while they enjoy everything they need in Tigray. This is the culmination of their revenge toward the Ethiopian people.

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