BY TEKLEBIRHAN GEBREMICHAEL
Ethiopia’s reported and apparent economic development is enigmatic. You look at the glitz and flash of the façade of Addis Ababa and you are likely to believe the 11 percent annual GDP growth rate routinely reported by the government and largely confirmed by IMF and World Bank consultation delegations working in luxury suites in posh five –star hotels in Addis Ababa.
Similarly, you go on a visit to the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange equipped with the state–of–the art digital technologies, and you may be inclined to think this was the way the giant Chicago Commodity Exchange (Chicago Board of Trade) developed, believing one day in the future the ECX may become the long–awaited launch pad from which Ethiopia’s commodity exports would soar into the statistically skies.
The public euphoria and the official fanfare and razzmatazz which accompanied Ethiopia’s first satellite launch in Dec, 2019 was a milestone event in the country’s recent history. Likewise, the establishment of industrial parks, the beginning of the construction of the Renaissance Dam, the building of the Addis–Adama expressway and the Addis light railway, etc. are all significant development projects worth special mention and discussion.
And now news of the planned establishment of the Ethiopian Securities Exchange, which at the time of writing was presented to parliament as a draft bill for enactment, is doing the rounds in Addis and elsewhere with considerable interest.
Reality check
All the above development projects and others like them do infuse a sense of hope and progress into the collective Ethiopian consciousness, which, of course, is a good thing. On the other hand, when you officially hear and read (ETV and Addis Lisan, Amharic, Jan. 28,2021) that 13,338,000 sqm of land, 21,695 condominiums and 10,565 government-owned houses have been illegally appropriated and plundered in Addis Ababa alone since 2005, it is all heart-breaking and brings to light the often repeated allegation that the Ethiopian government had indeed been a Mafia-like criminal syndicate all along!
But the observation does not stop there. If the very foundation of the Ethiopian political and economic system is corruption, theft and crime in general, what then is the chance of the various development projects and symbols of modernity such as those mentioned above having been conceived in a spirit of a genuine desire for sustainable economic, scientific and technological development? Would it be too presumptuous to suspect that the projects and symbols of modernity were hurriedly conceived and implemented (often without proper feasibility studies) not so much for the sake of their real contributions to social development as for the opportunities they offered for bribes, kickbacks, false commissions and corruption in general both from domestic and foreign financing mechanisms?
How is it then that the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX), which raised hopes for a substantial surge in commodity exports, is witnessing year in and year out a stagnation of merchandise export earnings at an annual total of only about 3 billion USD some twelve years after its establishment in 2008?
How do you explain the glaring reality on the ground that over seven years after the establishment of industrial parks in Ethiopia, the vast majority of the Ethiopian youth are still clothed and shod with garment, sketcher and sneaker imports from China, which actually helped Ethiopia build the first industrial park?
During the time of Haileselassie, the population was clothed and shod mostly with clothes, leather, canvas and plastic shoes made in Ethiopia. Is what we are witnessing today a sign of industrial progress or retrogression?
What do the development projects and symbols of modernity represent? Are they indications of genuine and sustainable economic development or white elephant, prestige and cheap publicity undertakings forming a glitzy façade behind which the real intentions of the Mafia-like government, networked structure are being realized? In other words, are they fundamental or superficial in nature?
The difference between fundamental and superficial economic development With fundamental economic development, you start by developing the young human brain from KG through primary, secondary and tertiary education and training both in academic and vocational streams. No doubt economic, scientific and technological development is generational.
The three Hailesellassie–era generation including his own did a lot better in nation building, in providing quality education and training and initiating economic and political modernization (remember academic freedom under Hailesellassie?) On the other hand, the Derg half–generation did pretty well on social equity (land redistribution) but stifled the very engine of social and economic progress, namely freedom of thought, thereby ushering in an era of social and political unrest and economic hardship.
The TPLF/EPRDF regime indulged in a destructive variant of identity–group democracy which may destructively be extended ad absurdum to the right of the individual on the basis of one’s unique identity, for example, in terms of height, skin colour shades, type of hair, thinness or fatness, etc.
This, of course, has been a grotesque mockery of democracy promoting funny but instinctive jokes like “the right of fat or short people to self–determination up to and including secession,” which would imply territorial designation, for the implementation of the fake right!
When democracy is based on physical and linguistic attributes of people rather than on their humanity and “the content of their character,” fundamental attributes such as humanity, character, knowledge and skill go down the drain and therefore quality education and training suffer egregiously.
That is exactly what happened with the TPLF/EPRDF generation and still seems to have continued to this day. Fundamental economic, scientific and technological development is based on the development of the human brain, not on the development of only a white’s, black’s or brown’s brain.
Rewards of all sorts including economic and financial ones are earned by human beings, not by people who speak a special language or are tall or short. In other words, fundamentality is grounded in humanity and superficiality is only of secondary and tertiary importance.
Factors which thwarted genuine development under TPLF/EPRDFThe salient obstacle has been identity-based rather than humanity–based politics.
Hence, an inordinate amount of time has been and is being spent on identity–based political mass mobilization to the detriment of quality education and training on political science, economics, mathematics, science, engineering, information and communication technology, robotics, artificial intelligence and English language or global lingua franca for access to international knowledge and experience.
Identity–based politics is the mother of superficiality, fakeness and mediocrity. Genuine and fundamental economic development requires merit based rewards in terms of political power, income and wealth and prestige.
However, since quality and merit cannot be extracted from identity-politics, what people who engage in it do to acquire undeserved economic and financial rewards is resort to corruption, fraud and outright theft and thuggery. Such people use superficial economic development, such as the development projects mentioned above, as a smokescreen behind which they conduct their massive acts of corruption.
Most specifically, the concrete obstacles which have thwarted genuine and fundamental economic, scientific and technological development are A dramatic decline in quality education and training, Seizure of political power by patently mediocre individuals and groups, Use of poorly studied or altogether unstudied mega projects as superficial symbols of economic development behind which to conduct massive corruption schemes ; The practice of identity–based rather than humanity–based politics
The fate of the planned Ethiopian Securities Exchange
As mentioned above, the draft bill to set up the Ethiopian Securities Exchange is being discussed in parliament at the time of writing. It is essentially a stock exchange which has been on the cards since the beginning of the Meles Zenwie era. Meles aborted the idea because he did not quite fancy the thought of Addis Ababa becoming the pre–eminent financial hub of the Ethiopian economy.
Now, the idea has been revived and seems to have a good chance of being implemented. But the question is: Is there enough traction on the ground for its productive implementation and practical success? For example, are there enough so–called blue–chip companies which can profitably be listed on the stock exchange, whose stocks are in great enough demand for there to be vibrant stock exchange trading.
One may think of Ethiopian Airlines and most commercial banks, but that is about all. Most business companies and enterprises in Ethiopia are plagued by power, water and foreign exchange shortages and constraints negatively affecting business turnover and expansion and therefore profitability, as a result of which the relevance of the stock exchange may diminish significantly. Hence, the prospective Ethiopian Securities Exchange may be practically condemned to suffering the fate of other superficial symbols of modernization and economic development.
Concluding remarks
If we want to get out of the realm of superficiality and enter the terra firma of fundamentality, we must educate and train the Ethiopian brain in general to be as smart as its counterparts across the globe. Remember, it is all a matter of quality education and training and nothing else.
The alternative, as we have found out to our cost, is mediocrity, corruption and superficiality. But who can fully realize this basic fact? Definitely not the Meles Zenawi’s generation which is poisoned with identity politics and the fake principle that “stealing is a business. It becomes a crime only when you are caught doing it”
The Ethiopian Herald February 16/2021
