Many litres of ink have been spent on this page arguing for the rationalisation and advance of government institutions towards providing a beneficial environment for private enterprise. Tapping into the individual potential is without a doubt the best way for offering lasting and true economic development to Ethiopia and to sub-Saharan Africa in general.

At the top of this list, logically, is the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE). It makes perfect sense that the nation’s central bank should be a driving force in reforming the country so that it can advance into even the middle of the table of developing countries (and not 170th, like the recent human development list provided by the UNDP). It is not completely unreasonable, one would have thought, to think that with a set of reforms here and a rethought strategy there, that the bank could begin really pulling its weight in bringing Ethiopia forward.

But unfortunately, sometimes a piece of news lands on the table that turns all these ruminations and proposals for a brighter future into idealistic, even naïve daydreaming; visions for tomorrow that fail to realise that the institutions required to get there cannot even find their way to the starting gate.

How else to interpret last week’s shocking news that, two years after sitting empty like a ghost town, the NBE’s much anticipated Academy of Financial Studies campus in the Akaki/Kaliti District is to be unceremoniously handed over to Addis Abeba University, on order of the Prime Minister.

The sad truth in its most essential form is that a whopping 120 million Br later, the powers-that-be finally gave up on the idea that the central bank had what it took to run the school. Better, finally, to put the premises into the more trustworthy hands of veteran academics.

And can you blame the Prime Minster on this decision? Most likely not. This setback for the NBE is hardly the first in the past year. Every month it seems, the central bank has another bureaucratic snafu under its belt.

The greatest symbol of these series of mishaps is probably the great service elevator to nowhere. As reported in Fortune last May, the NBE bought a service elevator for its current building for 99,000 euro. But since it was delivered by the supplier company, SECALT of Luxembourg, the central bank has still not figured out how to install it. Warnings and protestations by the company were simply responded to with a request for patience. To this day, whenever Bank experts and officials, including the governor himself, show up to work, they must walk by this glaring reminder that maybe, just maybe, everything is not going so well on an execution level at the central bank. If the NBE cannot figure out to install an elevator system, how can citizens expect it to figure out the money supply?

And money supply is a whole other story. The long and winding road to the new Birr notes has been a testing one indeed. In July, the NBE announced that it was going to cancel its order for new Birr from Francois Charles Oberthur Fiducaire (FCOF), a French company, because of the company’s failure to do deliver the goods three months after deadline. Fair enough.

But a little over a month later, as it turned out, the Birr notes were delivered and to the grand surprise of everyone involved, there was no place to store the new arrivals. The bank, apparently, was so worried in following up its order, that it forgot to make sure that its own infrastructure and logistics were ready for the order’s impending arrival. It is not a great comfort to anyone hoping that the central bank can lead macroeconomic monetary policy that it fails to anticipate storage space issues or how to work new incinerators, bought to clear out the storage space.

As reported here, the sugar factory in Wonji came to the rescue and the delivery of new bank notes could take place more or less appropriately. But what do these incidents say about the ability of the bank to really tackle the immediate economic challenges facing the country? If the Prime Minster has lost faith in the NBE to move its academy 20-odd kilometres into state-of-the-art facilities worthy of the Sheraton, how much faith can he have that the bank can do its real job of managing the country’s monetary policy and regulating its quickly expanding banking industry?

Sadly, this may very well be a trick question. One of the major reforms this page has argued for is an increased independence for the NBE from its political overseers, led by the Prime Minister and his cabinet. Central Bank experts and governors need to have the clarity of mind, purpose and, crucially, capability to make the right decisions for the country’s economic development.

But they do not have this independence and freedom of manoeuvre. Indeed, as inflation ratchets up to well into the double digits, it is abundantly clear that the NBE has neither a plan for addressing the price increases nor an ambition or sense of purpose to do so. Such crucial decision making, it seems, would never come from its auspices. Despite its army of experts and specialists and their volumes of graphs and reports, any decision to increase interest rates or disburse with foreign currency is more likely than not to be taken from the office of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers.

Sadly, judging by the NBE’s ability to manage a campus, it is probably just as well that the ruling party centralises major monetary policy decisions. Or at least that is what can be argued. By depriving the NBE of real purpose, the incapability to one day carry out that purpose becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. And ironically, the NBE has now lost a major tool of improving its capability (the academy), because of its own very incapability. This all quite depressing and complicated, to say the least and leaves open the question how the thousands of Ethiopians needed to man the expanding financial sector (20,000 employees today)  will adequately get training.

In the face of all these debacles, it would be very easy to call for the resignation of the governor, the experts or anyone else responsible for these embarrassing times at the NBE. But much like the recent billing system scandal at the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation, firing and replacing people can only accomplish so much if the overall structure and philosophy ruling an institution is not addressed. Much like the elevator to nowhere, it is all fine and well to build a luxurious campus (with swimming pool!), but if the capability is not there to administer it, you are left with a ghost town.

Maybe, under the circumstances, the Prime Minister is right to hand over the keys to the campus to the University and its doctoral students. In a limited way, it makes sense. But the abject failure of the NBE to fill its own promises, does not leave executive power completely off the hook.

In order for this not to happen again, the guiding philosophy for the ruing party should be to turn the NBE into an ironclad institution perfectly capable of handling the monetary policy of Ethiopia, leading a true insurrection against inflation and providing a stable environment for private enterprise. Without rewiring the institution, the same mistakes will be made and the same elevator towards development will be stuck on the ground floor.