One of the detrimental legacies of the prereform TPLF/EPRDF regime is the degradation of Ethiopian human resource base. Political repression forced the most talented and brightest Ethiopians to flee their country. Those who remained behind were dumbed down by the appalling collapse in the quality of education and training. History and philosophy were considered useless and were excluded from the curriculum. Lip service was instead paid to science and engineering.
Seventy percent of the university entrants were therefore randomly allotted to science and engineering faculties, the remaining proportion going to the social sciences. Unqualified teachers taught unqualified students. Strangely, students were given the prerogative to evaluate their teachers, giving rise to a situation whereby students could say to their teachers: “If you don’t give us an A we won’t give you an A.” The balance of terror suited both sides. Students hated attending classes and studying. Teachers loathed making extensive preparations for lectures and always having to show up on time. Students clicked away at their mobile phones imbibing fake news and porno and rotted their own way. Teachers hurried about doing what they called consultancy work which in plain language is nothing more than moonlighting.
Smarter youngsters and old timers new better. They wrote theses, dissertations, reports and term papers on their laptops and sold them not only to clueless students but also to moonlighting teachers, of course for a handsome fee ranging from 1,500 to 5000 birr per paper. Poor students would rely more on the notorious balance of terror mentioned above. The medium of instruction was a nightmare for both teachers and students. Ethiopia’s long-standing lingua franca Amharic has been demonized as the language of the oppressor. So, teachers and students had to resort to their mother tongues and English. Teachers could not possibly speak all the 85 ethnic languages and dialects in Ethiopia.
Hence, they had to try their smattering of English in which they were not able to get across even simple ideas, let alone complicated concepts such as marginal utility and eminent domain. Ethiopian elders considered this to be the curse of the biblical Tower of Babel. Be as it may, at the end of their studies students would graduate with all manner of certificates, diplomas and degrees devoid of real knowledge, expertise and skills. Then, it is time to look for a job which is actually predetermined by whether one is a member or supporter of TPLF/EPRDF.
Members and supporters, which in fact all of them must be in order to find employment, are placed in vacancies in the civil service or if there are no vacancies, redundancies will be duly created to absorb as many of the graduates as possible. However, as the civil service or the rest of the economy can only absorb a limited number, the rest must swell the ranks of the burgeoning army of the unemployed. Employed or unemployed, the youth in Ethiopia are incredibly poorly educated and trained.
They are therefore in no position to grow the economy or democratize the country’s political system. The Ethiopian civil service has been decimated by lack of real knowledge, skills and expertise. This has had a devastating impact on institutions such as government ministries, utilities, the central bank and other government banks. Institutional capacity, memory, hierarchy of seniority and culture have all been more or less destroyed.
The nascent meritocracy under Emperor Haile Selassie has been displaced by a rotten mediocracy. Corruption and nepotism feed mediocracy. The once famous Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) has now been degraded into a TPLF/EPRDF so-called policy bank, serving as a development bank instead of what its name suggests, with a staggering 500 billion birr longterm credit to government development agencies which may never be repaid! The National Bank of Ethiopia, Ethiopia’s central bank, does not seem to know what its statutory duties and powers are.
Instead of formulating a credible monetary policy on a best-practice model to control inflation and maintain exchange rate stability, it has become the government’s loudest cheerleader for its devastating inflationary financing policy, wreaking immense havoc on the national economy. The newly appointed Governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia has recently been quoted as saying: “My job is to help the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia play the role of a policy bank in the most successful manner possible”.
Quite on the contrary, its duty is to restrain the CBE’s runaway credit binge for government agencies that is perhaps the most significant single factor fuelling inflation in the country. As may be known, the CBE gobbled up the former Construction and Business Bank (CBB) after illegally trespassing on its business preserve.
Similarly, the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) is in its death throes following a spectacular 5 billion birr heist by a Mafia-like band of robber borrowers. Likewise, the Ministry of Finance hardly mentions the importance of a sound fiscal policy for economic growth and development, inflation control and exchange rate stability. The Ministry of Industry does not seem to have a clue about the connection between land reform, land consolidation, commercial farming and industries including agro-industries.
The government Social Security Commission appears to be unaware of the advantages of creating an independently managed pension fund for government pensioners, now over 700,000, who unfortunately are struggling to make ends meet below the poverty line! The Ministry of Transport stands idly by as passengers fight tooth and nail to get a seat in the jam-packed minibuses day in and day out! On the other hand, land administration in Ethiopia is a hotbed for corruption.
As a result, housing problems are mounting beyond control. Subsidized government healthcare is so difficult to get and private sector medical costs are so unaffordable that the vast majority of the people are now resorting more and more to traditional medicines and holy mineral water for pain relief and treatment. Hence, the price of mediocrity and that of its outcome mediocracy is unbelievably high.
TPLF/EPRDF equated military victory with ethnic superiority, with truth and meritocracy, but that obviously is an outrageous perception and a preposterous lie! Ninety-nine percent of the DNA of the human species (black, white or yellow) is absolutely identical. Hence, Meles Zenawi’s audacious declaration of “a golden ethnicity” and, by implication “a base-metal ethnicity” could only have been spewed by a demented psyche! Meles Zenawi defeated Mengistu Hailemariam in the civil war not because of ethnic superiority (there were excellent Tigrean generals fighting on Mengistu’s side), but Mengistu was foolish enough not to switch superpower allegiances when the times required it and because he killed his own best generals at a time when he needed them most. Meles Zenawi’s false superiority complex, unlike the genuine type, had no tolerance for competition.
So, he had to eliminate all his potential competitors and rivals, which he promptly did when he assumed power. Worse still, he hated anybody emerging from the larger public, including from his own ethnic group, to pose anything like a credible challenge to his absolute power. One way to do this was to degrade the quality of education and training in the country. He did this under the subtle cover of constructing impossing school and university buildings, but devoid of proper teachers, libraries, laboratories, workshops and internet connections.
Admittedly, he did better in this respect in favor of his ethnic region, but this partly boomeranged on him as brilliant students and teachers such as Abraha Desta and Andom Gebreselassie began to question his basic political and economic tenets to some extent. After Meles Zenawi’s death his successor PM Hailemariam did hardly any better on the education front. Hence, we had to wait agonizingly patiently for over twenty seven long years to see a light at the end of the tunnel with the coming to power of MP Abiy Ahmed some nine months ago. But, the trouble is Abiy is ,surrounded by mediocre officials and employees from top to bottom, many of them with fake academic degrees which evaded detection by prohibitions on degree audits in some universities, including Addis Ababa University.
What the new Governor of the NBE recently said has already been mentioned above. His remark rankled in my head even more agonizingly when I heard on CNN the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board (the US central bank) reply to a hypothetical question, “Would you resign if President Trump asked you to?”, a terse No! I understand that the Chairman had a row with the President over an interest rate increase which the President thought would dampen his professed economic boom. Our concern, though, is what can PM Abiy do until the next election which is still one and half years away? The PM appears to be on the right track in appointing seasoned professionals from outside the EPRDF fraternity, including Prof.Birhanu Nega, Prof. Merera Gudina, W/t Birtukan Mideksa, Dr. Daghachew Assefa, Dr. Iyob Tesfaye and Ato Mesfin Namara.
I would like to contribute to this commendable effort and initiative by suggesting a few names including the following: Prof. Surafel Girma, Ato Tilahun Abaye, Ato Leykhun Birhanu, Ato Gebeyehu Tebeje, Ato Tesfaye Birru, Ato Mulugeta Taye, At Getachew Minas, Ato Kibre Moges, Prof. Getachew Begashaw, Ato Samuel Bekele, Ato Ismael Kidanemariam, Ato Getachew Haile, Dr. Meshesha, Ato Abdumenan Mohammed, Prof. Alemante G/Selassie, Prof. Getachew Haile, Dr. Aklog Birara, Dr. Said Nuru, Ato Berhane Mewa, Ato Habtamu Ayalew, Ato Abebe Akalu, Ato Yilikal Getnet, Ato Ermias Legesse, W/t Riot Alemu, etc. I would suggest that most of these professionals are now best suited to placements and appointments in advisory roles.
They are mostly past the stage of being mainly motivated by pecuniary rewards and are more than willing to give back to their country and their society more than what they have received. It takes a long time and a lot of hard work to transition from a rotten mediocracy to a just meritocracy, but we must begin the journey today!
Herald January 20/2019
BY TEKLEBIRHAN GEBREMICHAEL
