Introduction
The Derg’s socialist experimentation and the TPLF/EPRDF’s disastrous ethnic balkanization and bantustanization have more or less destroyed the relatively betterfunctioning imperial political and economic system in Ethiopia. As a result, efficient and well-functioning Ethiopian institutions such as the military, the judicial system, land registration and administration institutions, schools, colleges and universities, the National Bank of Ethiopia, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, High Way Authority, Malaria Eradication Institution, ELPA, Tele, CPA, parliament, ESBU, EPID, etc. have all been either severely weakened or completely destroyed. Perhaps the only institution from the Imperial era that can still claim to be as efficient is the Ethiopian Airlines.
The basic administrative and perhaps philosophical problem with PM Abiy Ahmed’s government is that it appears to be under the illusion that the political and economic system the TPLF/EPRDF erected over the last twentyeight years can be reformed. There is just no way that this could be accomplished. It is a losing battle to say the least. The educational system has been completely decimated! There is no land policy and no land administration to speak of. The state banking system including the NBE (the central bank) has been destroyed. Hence, PM Abiy would be better advised to use his unexpected rise to power to completely change the destructive ideology and its institutions of implementation wrought by the TPLF/EPRDF over the last twentyeight years.
The Derg’s socialist experimentation and the TPLF/EPRDF’s disastrous ethnic balkanization and bantustanization have more or less destroyed the relatively betterfunctioning imperial political and economic system in Ethiopia. As a result, efficient and well-functioning Ethiopian institutions such as the military, the judicial system, land registration and administration institutions, schools, colleges and universities, the National Bank of Ethiopia, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, High Way Authority, Malaria Eradication Institution, ELPA, Tele, CPA, parliament, ESBU, EPID, etc. have all been either severely weakened or completely destroyed.
Perhaps the only institution from the Imperial era that can still claim to be as efficient is the Ethiopian Airlines. The basic administrative and perhaps philosophical problem with PM Abiy Ahmed’s government is that it appears to be under the illusion that the political and economic system the TPLF/EPRDF erected over the last twenty eight years can be reformed. There is just no way that this could be accomplished. It is a losing battle to say the least. The educational system has been completely decimated! There is no land policy and no land administration to speak of. The state banking system including the NBE (the central bank) has been destroyed. Hence, PM Abiy would be better advised to use his unexpected rise to power to completely change the destructive ideology and its institutions of implementation wrought by the TPLF/EPRDF over the last twenty eight years.
The Need for a Strong Ethiopian Military
TPLF/EPRDF’s pernicious ethnicitybased propaganda and indoctrination have produced an ill-informed and unruly populace and a pseudo-intelligentsia swayed more by emotion than reason with all sorts of bizarre narratives. Both need to be disciplined by a properly educated and trained Ethiopian military. There is no other way to control wildly animated youths who lynch their own compatriots in broad daylight and rabid pseudo-intellectuals who cheer them on to commit such heinous atrocities! Besides, how else could the Prime Minster bring to justice TPLF/EPRDF criminals who have committed murder and homicide (and even genocide) and plundered not just millions but trillions of birr from the Ethiopian people and their public coffers? At any rate, in this regard I would suggest re-enlisting former outstanding military officers and rank and file as may be required.
Forming a Technocratic Caretaker Government PM Abiy Ahmed’s another and important and immediate task is to form a highly competent council of ministers whose job is to reformulate the country’s political and economic ideology, policies and strategies and reorganize the relevant institutions in order to realize genuine democratization and rapid socio-economic development in anticipation of the promulgation of a new constitution based on citizenship politics. Such high-caliber ministerial professionals may be recruited both from within Ethiopia and from the Ethiopian Diaspora. Policy and institutional areas subject to significant re-formulation and r e – o r g a n i z a t i o n include education and training, land tenure and administration, banking and financial sector reform, judicial reform, reform of other economic sectors including agriculture, industry, mining and services.
A New Constitution Drafting Commission
PM Abiy Ahmed must determine that an ethnicity-based constitution, as amply demonstrated by twenty-eight years of crimes and injustices committed in the name of nations and nationalities and the more recent largescale internal displacements and evictions is detrimental to the territorial integrity and unity of the people of Ethiopia, and therefore should forthwith be prescribed by law. The constitution-drafting commission may be constituted from all major non-ethnic political parties and organizations and from prominent intellectuals, professionals and community notables. Of course, the draft constitution must be presented to the people and accepted (or rejected) by them in a referendum. It would come into force only if and when endorsed by the majority of the Ethiopian people in a referendum.
Education and Training Sector Reform
The primary objective here is to significantly upgrade the quality of academic and vocational education and training starting from K.G. to university by substantially improving both qualitatively and quantitatively the teaching and training staff, teaching materials, institutions and facilities including broad-based internet services. Educational and training incentives such as honors lists, high grades, research funds, scholarships, etc. should be based purely on academic and scholastic achievements during periods of education and training. Government budgetary allocations to that end should be significantly increased and to augment such budgetary resources a 2-percent education tax levy may be proposed.
Land Reform
Constitutional change would allow substantial reforms in land tenure systems and in land use programs. It is expected that following c o n s t i t u t i o n a l changes four types of land tenure, namely private, collective, g o v e r n m e n t and leasehold holdings will come into force. On the other hand, governing the manner of land utilization, a country-wide land use plan both for rural and urban land would need to be prepared and implemented.
Banking and Financial Sector Reform
Particularly the government banking sector must be subject to substantial reform.
The central bank (the NBE) should re-establish its monetary policy committee, re-introduce borrowing limits on its lending to the government and re-assert its autonomy by re-instituting its answerability to parliament rather than to the Prime Minister. The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia should be subject to strict external auditing and must limit its credit risk exposure to government project lending. The Development Bank of Ethiopia should be completely restructured as it has already been bankrupted by corrupt officials and borrowers. The former Construction and Business Bank (the CBB) which was actually a mortgage bank should be re-established. It too has a very bad historical record. Other recommendations include the establishment of Addis Stock Exchange and private currency shops to discourage black market operations.
Health Sector Reform
It is now well known that the secret of rapid economic and social development is a well-educated, skilled and healthy work-force. Hence, affordable healthcare for the larger working class of people is a must, but it must be properly funded. To this end a 2-percent health tax levy may be proposed.
Other Sector Reform
Agriculture, industry, mining and service sectors reform should definitely be likewise conducted. Project study and appraisal institutions are of critical importance here. Private-sector, joint-venture and foreign direct investment projects should be strongly encouraged through manpower training, access to land and bank credit and administrative facilitation as well as through tax incentives.
Incentive System Reform
It may be justifiably contended that the most important single factor that has caused Ethiopia to remain economically backward is its highly distorted incentive system. Ethiopia’s economy is one which lavishly rewards thieves and corrupt people. The richest people in Ethiopia are the most corrupt ones. For example, individuals who literally killed the state banking sector are currently drawing monthly salaries of one hundred thousand birr! The government sector salary scales and pension payments are so anomalous that employees on the same job grading may get widely differing salaries and pensions as widely disparate. Hence, uniformly structured government salary scales and pension schemes should be put in place.
The Flagging Anti-Corruption Campaign
The on-again off-again government anticorruption campaign is in danger of losing traction altogether. The big TPLF/EPRDF Mafia syndicate honchos are more or less still in positions of power and in fact are enjoying the fruits of their pillage and plunder without the same degree of political and economic responsibility as when they were actually in the driving seat before the arrival of PM Abiy Ahmed on the scene. It is estimated that over the last twenty-seven years, the TPLF/EPRDF corruption network has plundered a total amount of cash and property of about 1.5 trillion birr of which 30 billion dollars is believed to have been stashed sway in offshore bank accounts and other investments!
In other words, what would have been the active capital that might have gone into commercial farming, agro-industries and other industries has now been frozen in the form of high-rise buildings, villas, luxury cars, land and foreign bank accounts and other financial investments, thereby depriving the country of a massive seed capital that would certainly have transformed Ethiopia’s economy if it were in the hands of deserving and entrepreneurial business persons.
The TPLF/EPRDF Mafia syndicate amassed capital by stealing it from the people and therefore by impoverishing them; is pretty much satisfied with the income it generates in the form of rent, interest and other safe returns, but there is no clear possibility of dynamic and entrepreneurial business persons having access to such capital because the chance has been unfortunately pre-empted by the corruption network.
Hence, the TPLF/EPRDF Mafia syndicate, by dint of state capture, has expropriated capital that would have been used to transform Ethiopia’s economy had that capital been in the hands of truly entrepreneurial Ethiopians! As such the TPLF/EPRDF Mafia syndicate wrecked not only the country’s past and present but also its economic future as well! The ramifications of systemic corruption are wide-ranging and exert lasting and fundamental impact.
It fetters the factors of production, particularly tying up capital in relatively unproductive properties such as buildings, thus depriving the economy of its most dynamic element. Systemic corruption also severely distorts society’s reliable system of incentives including profit and legitimate wage and salary differentials.
Even basic social and moral values are badly undermined when corruption goes beyond its fringe occurrence and becomes endemic as is, unfortunately, the case in Ethiopia. The work ethic is severely undermined and knowledge literally becomes quite useless! In short, corruption stifles the creative potential of society and cripples the dynamic of economic and social development.
Hence, it is quite idle to speak of economic development in Ethiopia without first making a determined effort to root out corruption in all its manifestations. Hence, before everything else, the flagging anti-corruption campaign should be significantly revived in order to achieve the following major objectives:
• to repatriate the estimated 30 billiondollar ill-gotten gains hidden in foreign lands;
• to restore the estimated 500 billion birr in cash, property and business enterprises plundered by the TPLF/EPRDF corruption network within the country to its rightful owners who are the Ethiopian people.
Concluding Remarks
Ethiopia should get out of its demoralizing and dehumanizing ethnic balkanization and bantustanization rut. It should embark on a truly capitalist/democratic revolution and reinstate the time-tested and time-honored value of the work ethic, productive knowledge and skills, a proper incentive system rewarding hard work, ability and talent and not corruption. Political power should be assumed only through free and fair elections; and money and property should be acquired only through value creation! Well dressed up impostors and ignoramuses should be ousted from the pedestal of power and wealth!
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition May 19/ 2019
BY TEKLEBIRHAN GEBREMICHAEL
