Business Process Reengineering, known in short as BPR, is a popular expression in government circles these days. The concept is simple: to reorganise state agencies so that they give not only efficient but speedy services to their clients. In the process, transparency and accountability is hoped to become the order of the day.

On the surface, it sounds pretty nice, but the devilish details of its implementation have intra-agency politics. The climax of such politicking was late last week, staged by reformist Czars in the government, championed by Capacity Building Minister Tefera Walwa, and finance conservatives under the command of Neway Gebreab, chief economic advisor to the Prime Minister.

The sticky issue was the speed and manner of reforming the three state-owned banks: Construction and Business Bank (CBB), Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) and Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE). There seems to be consensus on the reform platform designed by managers of CBE, although not many of them are into CBB yet, according to gossip. The tussle, instead, is over the BPR plan suggested by DBE guys, as spearheaded by Mesenbet Shenkute, vice president for Client Relation and Branch Operation.

Those at the agency in charge of state finance companies, an entity that has become increasingly assertive, argue that the plan contradicts the international risk management practice as agreed in the town of Basel, Switzerland, following the Asian financial crises. They want to see a Chinese Wall separate those who appraise loan requests from the officers approving them. They want to see what is technically known as "segregation of duties" in loans, from appraisals to disbursements.

The reform command centre is persuaded by DBE officers' enthusiasm to cut the process short and fast track the lending procedure, a desire seen by their adversaries as a recipe for disaster for a financial institution that is seen to be in a very precarious situation now, according to gossip. News of the tension reportedly reached the ears of the Prime Minister, who advised all involved their dispute on a roundtable.

All in fact did meet inside Tefera's office for two days beginning Thursday; both camps were determined to finish the other off, according to gossip. Chaired by the reform Czar himself, there was Abay Tsehaye, chairman of CBE, Melaku Fenta, chairman of DBE, Neway Gebreab and their principals. Gossip claims, Abay displayed a remarkable level of composure and leadership while Neway was kind of quiet for much of the time, letting his people, such as Brehane Assefa and Yeshi Kassa do the talking.

Gossipers claim the result was not to the satisfaction of either camp. DBE officers cannot launch their BPR tomorrow, November 19, as they originally planned it, and no one was fired as adversaries may have hoped. The bigwigs have at the end agreed to form a committee or taskforce comprising experts from the Ministry of Capacity Building (MoCB) and the DBE to study how many of the banks across the globe use "segregation of duties" and how many others do not, said gossip. It looks like a relief measure that has, for the moment anyways, postponed the mutual discontent.