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I
sat down during the middle of the week to write this
piece, after having taken into account what day we
would not be having electricity. At my first
attempt, which was in the morning, the electric
power was cut off around 10am and did not come back
on until four o’clock in the afternoon. So, after
having fumed all day, I sat down yet again, after
collecting my thoughts, and guess what, lo and
behold the electricity gets cut off again.
So I get on the phone and take about half an hour
trying to get through to the central 905 number and
when I finally get the ringing signal and a voice on
the other end, the lady is nice enough to tell me
that the shut off was deliberate and that they had
done it in order to quell factories and mills from
working during the night. or at times when they were
not supposed to. I was astounded; I could not even
begin to wrap my mind around the implications of
this information, given the state and condition that
we all find ourselves in.
So, this is my official resignation from trying to
live the semblance of a normal life in Ethiopia, I
quit! I quit hoping for better times to come, and I
quit hoping that our public services industries will
finally get their act together and provide us with
the services that they are legally bound to.
At times when people are not able to afford one real
meal a day and the prices of everyday life are
getting higher and higher on a daily, if not hourly,
basis, it physically nauseates me to think that the
public services sector is not just curbing daily
production and service availability, but is rather
going as far as penalizing people for trying to earn
their daily bread.
And this does not apply only to the lack of
electricity that all of us are experiencing between
two and three times a week now. In some areas,
including where I live, when the lights go out,
there is no water. But in other areas, there is no
water service for weeks at a time and then the
shortage of electricity just adds insult to injury.
I am disheartened that during the 21st Century, we
are forced to live by candlelight and count the days
in the week that we will not be able to preserve
food, manufacture goods for deliveries that we are
contracted for, or simply check our e-mail. We, as a
nation and as a people, are in no position to have
our momentum interrupted.
We have been trying, in our own distorted manner, to
make the best of the cards that we have been dealt
and have been making some improvements in the
position and earnings of the nation as a whole.
But when up and coming industries are told that
they are not able to produce because they take up
too much electricity, or when we do not receive
water supplies, or when you go to a public office or
a courthouse and cannot conduct business on time
because the electricity is cut on that day, when
people are not able to bathe and provide their
children with light to study with; then the nation
and its residents are undoubtedly being pulled down
into the pits.
It is the responsibility of those rendering the
services to provide them to those with earning power
because that is the only way that this country will
strap itself up again. Consider the situation that
we find ourselves in: the trade deficit is
increasing due to the fact that the increase in the
price of oil has also increased the cost of imports,
which this country heavily relies on.
The government continues to subsidise oil, along
with grains, which causes a further strain on the
economy, and with the depletion of foreign currency
reserves and no oil produced in the country to
replenish those reserves, we are, indeed, in a dire
situation.
But instead of encouraging those few people who
could actually make a difference in times like
these, services are not being rendered in even the
most basic of forms, making their existence
vulnerable, if not extinct.
It would be unfair of me to assume that I am the
only one who has reached breaking point when it
comes to the problems that we seem to be facing
everyday. As a matter of fact, I am probably one of
the urban dwellers that are less affected. But
consider the amount of lives, livelihoods, small and
micro businesses, public proceedings at risk, and
construction delays that are a result of the lack of
essential services, coupled with the inflation that
the country is experiencing.
Something needs to be done immediately because if
more people were to resign themselves to the current
situation, like I have, then we would really have a
problem on our hands. So before that happens,
ensuring some electricity and water for Addis
Abebans might be a good move.
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