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Prime Minister Meles Zenawi made a surprise
appearance at a gathering of 2,500 members of the
Diaspora in the capital last week hosted by the
government, and called on them to put aside
political squabbling to invest their time, knowledge
and money in Ethiopia's development.
Meles decided to make the brief speech after he was
told by Foreign Minister Seyoum about the
overwhelming number of people that had arrived,
sources disclosed to Fortune. Although the Prime
Minister has occasionally met members of the
Diaspora when he travels aboard, it is the first
time he has given them an audience here in Addis
Abeba.
"I believe it is a big change for Ethiopia to have
such an opportunity to speak to the power with no
fear of consequences," Hanna Mekete, a journalist
residing in Isreal, told Fortune.
Organizers of the Diaspora meeting with senior
government officials last week were unprepared for
the large turnout as evidenced by the shortage of
brochures and posters prepared for the event. Over
2,000 copies were gone in no time, according to a
senior official at the national secretariat
established for the millennium celebration, and
hundreds of additional chairs had to be set up after
the meeting was opened by Seyoum Mesfin, minister of
Foreign Affairs.
For a government famously at odds with members of
the Diaspora overseas, Thursday, September 20, was a
public relations coup d'état. The last time such a
meeting was held in Ethiopia's capital was during
the Western world's millennium in 2000, when all
senior government officials but Meles attended. A
conservative estimate puts turnout around 2,500,
mostly of people visiting from the West to attend
millennium festivities. Hanna Fekadu, a resident of
Washington D.C., who has come to Ethiopia four or
five times in the past few years, was among them.
Impressed with the way the millennium events have
been conducted, Hanna said she is pleased to see "a
miraculous construction boom" across the city.
Judging from the whispers in the audience, many came
to the meeting anticipating that the government
would help members of the Diaspora to join the
construction craze by offering plots of land. They
were to be disappointed.
Senior ministers of the government were instead
armed with the dictum, "Ask not what your country
can do for you. Ask what you can do for your
country." Officials at the meeting wanted to
encourage the Diaspora to bolster remittances. Last
year, 632 million dollars were sent back to Ethiopia
from the 1.5 million people of Ethiopian descent
living around the world. Central Bank Governor
Teklewold Atnafu told the audience that this was a
79pc increase from the previous year. Still,
Ethiopia's remittances remain low, he pointed out,
in comparison to the 35 billion dollars China
received from its communities aboard, the 17 billion
dollars sent home to India or the 10.5 billion sent
back to Mexico, all in 2003.
At the podium, Minister Seyoum later teased Governor
Atnafu for taking more time in his speech than
allocated.
"I believe the governor has deposited the extra time
in the National Treasury so that the minutes yield
interest," he quipped.
Humour aside, Seyoum questioned the commitment of
the Diaspora, saying their contribution was
inadequate given their size, and called on them to
redouble support to help their native country
overcome its humiliation in the eyes of the rest of
the world. Then he told a story that left some in
the crowd shocked.
He recounted the experience of a Scottish cyclist,
Bob Dylan, who rode across Africa from Alexandria,
Egypt, to Cape Town, South Africa: His story in
passing through Ethiopia illustrates the indignity
its citizens ought to feel while aboard, he said.
"If you're to mention the word Ethiopia, I would
have thought about Bob Geldof and the fast track
runners," Mr. Dylan wrote, as Minister Seyoum quoted
from his travel memoir. "After spending two weeks in
that country I've not changed my views."
He attributed his "unpleasant" journey in Ethiopia
to the kids and adults running alongside his bicycle
begging for money. He saw in Ethiopia a widely
shared view associating a white man with wealth.
"There I'm not looked at as a human being, but a
portable box stashed with money," wrote Dylan.
"Should I refuse to give money, they throw stones at
me."
The cyclist found Ethiopia a country full of
puzzles; with an astonishing history but currently
in miserable condition. Dylan observed that even
those who are not stretching their hands for money
are desperate to leave the country for the
opportunities for quick money they believe exist in
the West. Ethiopians have lost their self-esteem,
Seyoum finally quoted Dylan as saying.
The Minister's account left many in the audience
with their mouths agape.
The Central Bank Governor said factors such as
inefficiency, long delays and high commission rates
in the formal banking system only partly accounted
for why Ethiopians abroad send home so much less
than their counterparts from China, India, and
Mexico.
Seyoum sees problems that go deeper. He said a
majority of the Diaspora are captive to a hate
campaign by a minority and militantly vocal segment
in their midst that was responsible for the
conflictive relations between Ethiopians aboard and
the country's government at home.
He was candid enough to admit the shortfalls in the
home front: bureaucratic bottlenecks in areas of
banking, land provision and customs. The latter two
are indeed dear to the Diaspora, judging from the
hundreds of notes that were flowing to him from the
crowd, and from the few of those attending who were
given the opportunity to speak.
"A vehicle is no longer a luxury," said Dereje, a
social worker from England who visited Ethiopia five
times in the past three years. "Your government
should review its decision in banning the privilege
to let us import cars duty free."
Dereje's comments were received by applause and
cheering from the audience. Indeed, his sentiment
was echoed by other speakers, underscoring the
importance of duty free to the group.
"The duty amount is a highway robbery," Idris
Mohammed, from England bluntly declared. "It is
simply too high. What we are asking for isn't to let
us bring free, but to make it reasonable."
Murad Hussen, who resettled from Canada two years
ago, does not see justice when the Customs Authority
asked him to pay 444,000 Br in duty for a vehicle he
bought for 3,000 dollars.
The crowd was not ready to listen to Melaku Fenta,
minister of Revenues, whose hapless attempt to
explain the rationale behind his government decision
to eliminate duty-free imports of cars fell on deaf
ears. Still, Ethiopia's tariff structure has
dramatically changed over the past 15 years, after
being revised almost three times. The tariff ceiling
has fallen from 230pc in the early 1990s to 35pc
now, bringing down the average tariff rate for
nearly 5,000 items from 41.6pc to 17.5pc today.
"Over 70pc of these items have a duty rate of less
than five per cent or zero," Melaku told a sceptical
crowd.
For a country whose revenue structure is heavily
dependant on what it generates from duties levied on
imports, the demand from the Diaspora may be too
expensive for the government to consider. The
government already lost close to five billion Birr
last year from imports entering duty free by virtue
of the investment incentive package.
"This too is not static," said Melaku. "It is being
revised considering our harmonization with
international customs and our development agenda."
Development is one of the four catch phrases the
government wanted members of the Diaspora to share,
despite their different political orientations.
Brehane Haile, minister of Information, whose office
put brightly-coloured banners calling on support to
fight poverty, vowed to realize the dream of a
prosperous Ethiopia. He also preached the need to
build national consensus over key issues: fighting
poverty, maintaining peace, ensuring good governance
and developing a national vision.
He was countered by outspoken members of the crowd
who said that the key problems facing Ethiopia were
instead an alarmingly growth in corruption,
favouritism, indecisiveness by decision makers and
bureaucratic bottlenecks.
"I've made a mistake to come back," said Murad from
Canada. "I've even dreamt that I'll go back [to
Canada] bankrupt, and beg my relatives to pay a
one-way ticket."
He was frustrated by the state housing rental agency
that forced him to tear down an extension he built
after "buying the Agency's house for 150,000 Br."
He was particularly frustrated after he saw his
neighbours were allowed to build a similar expansion
on their home, according to him.
The bureaucracy and the arrogance demonstrated by
traffic officers is what most offended Zerihun Desta
when he returned to Ethiopia a week before the New
Year, after he spent 11 years in Germany.
Nessibu Hussen and Rosa Alemayehu are back for good
after spending 16 years in Germany. Nessibu was
working in a private metal workshop and Rosa was
spare parts dealer. Although they have strong
interest to invest what they have saved in setting
up textile plant, they simply cannot bear the
bureaucracy.
"They don't work and they don't let you work," said
Nessibu.
Prime Minister Meles, whose appearance was neither
expected nor originally planned, had a message to
people like Murad, Zerihun, Nessibu and Rosa: they
have hardly any choice because they have only one
country of origin.
"This is not a country where you invest because the
bureaucracy is friendly to you," he told a crowd
that stood up upon his arrival and cheerfully
interrupted the briefing by Amare Amsalu, the
youngest CEO of the state-owned Ethiopian
Telecommunications Corporation (ETC). "It is your
national obligation. That is what makes you
different from any foreign investor."
He urged them not to be affected because the
bureaucracy fails to do its job, or because "those
of us in the political power have failed you".
Although Seyoum peppered his speech with witty
remarks, he was hardly a match for the hilarious
performance from Meles, who cracked a joke on issues
ranging from power outages and the killer Isuzu
vehicles a.k.a "Alqaida" to a subtle Amharic
pronouncement - Mengedun Cherik Yergelachu -
repeating a comment he had made a few years earlier
about opposition parties that had created a
political storm.
"Many people see this negatively," Meles said
smiling. "It simply means bon voyage."
He was bidding farewell to those who would be
returning to their respective host countries.
Meles' message was similar to what his Minister of
Information tried to convey, though more articulate
than the latter. He wanted them to work with his
government - despite their political views - not
only by sending money back home or investing here,
but also by promoting Ethiopia's products in their
host countries and by serving as sales agents. He
would basically like Ethiopians across the world to
emulate what Chinese and Indians have achieved in
helping their products become what they are in the
world today.
"You've successfully done that with Teff," said
Meles. "Unfortunately, that has put you in
competition with local consumers."
He was referring to his government's decision last
year to ban the export of Teff, an apprehensive
policy measure taken in order to calm soaring grain
prices in the country.
He also encouraged Ethiopian professionals serving
the corporate world in the West to take a leave of
absence for few months to help the country in its
development efforts. He cited the examples of a
United States-based association of medical
professionals that comes here twice a year to serve
in public hospitals and two Ethiopian IT
professionals advising his government in the
procurement and installations of telecom equipments.
For Meles, these are areas where politics should
have little place, but rather where Ethiopians unite
in a non-partisan manner.
"I just heard Amare talk about fibre-optics when I
popped in," Meles told the crowd. "The fibre-optics
we are building in this country is not Revolutionary
Democrat or Kinijit (CUD). They are fibre-optics
that serves all of the Ethiopian people."
The comment seemed to hit home with those such as
Dawit Belete, a resident in Australia working as a
business analyst and contractor in the information
technology industry. He wants to see the Prime
Minister walk the talk when it comes accommodating
IT professionals.
"I understand everything has a challenge in this
country," Dawit told Fortune. "You need to have
patience even to attend a meeting while power is
frequently off."
Nessibu and Rosa are pleased to see the top
leadership of the government be frank enough to
admit the existence of the problems, and that they
seem committed to addressing them.
"A problem known is problem half-solved," said
Nessibu.
Not every one was satisfied, though. People like
Nassir Aba Jifar, a resident of Canada who came back
after 32 years, observed that critical policy issues
were simply overlooked, giving way to implementation
errors. Indeed, hardly anyone among the participants
raised questions that challenged the Prime
Minister's later assertion that the country has few
policy-related shortcomings but only problems
related to implementation.
Elizabeth Gizaw, from Florida, United States, and
Alem Mulugeta, from Beirut, Lebanon, were just
interested to hear about the rumour they had heard
that government would give plots to the Diaspora for
residential construction.
"I haven't heard anything that would interest me,"
Alem, a domestic worker in Beirut who came back
after seven years, told Fortune after the meeting
was closed at 6:00p.m. "Everything said was about
the big guys: investors and industrialists."
Indeed, the provision of plots in the capital and
other regional towns to members of the Diaspora was
not as simple as many of them had thought it would
be. There were even those who asked government to
give them condominium houses that were meant to
house low-income urban groups across the country.
"I don't believe the authorities have addressed the
issue of housing properly," Tigist Brehanu, a
designer from United Arab Emirates (UAE), told
Fortune. "People should have a place to settle
before they start to think about investing."
For Hanna Mekete, the journalist working for 140
Channel in Israel, nothing is as important as the
message the meeting itself conveys to the world. She
believes that the forum gave people a chance to
speak out on key political and economic issues. And
whatever their opinion on the matters at hand, that
is something they can all believe in. |
