Abune Paulos: Former Patriarch of Ethiopian Orthodox Church

Abune Paulos, known by his birth name Gebre Medhin Welde Yohanes, was the fifth Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. After starting as a deacon trainee at Aba Garima Monastery in his young ages, he continued his religious study at the Holy Trinity Theology College in Addis Ababa and went to United States to start PhD program at Princeton Theology school.

He was called back from US by the then patriarch of the church and was given a bishop position in the church. Because the Ethiopian government didn't approve the ordain of Abune Paulos and four other Church fathers by the Patriarch at the time, he was arrested with all the other Church fathers forcing him to suspend his PhD. After his release he finished his study and came back to Ethiopia to be chosen as the fifth Patriarch of Ethiopia when the former patriarch Abune Merkorios fled the country due to government pressure. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church tradition precludes the assigning of a new patriarch unless the former one passed away and many point to this dogma to claim that he is not a legitimate patriarch of the Church.

Despite these allegations, Abune Paulos started serving as the head of the Church with out any disapproval from the believers in the first few years. But then came a series of events which pictured him as a pro-regime leader who cares deeply about the survival of the regime. He had three major tests to prove that he has no involvement in politics but he failed. Let me describe the three events that resulted in people feeling disgruntled about his leadership.

His first test came during the 1999 GC (1992 EC) Addis Ababa University student protest. Due to the continuous heckling by the campus police and secretive activity of government security agents, the university students started demanding the removal of the police from their campus and be replaced by transparent professional security. Discussions with the government failed and resulted in a city wide protest that pitted the students of the capital city against the government security forces. After the government deployed huge forces and started to gain the upper hand many students fled to the near by Kidiste Mariam Church for protection knowing that the church compound is off limit for security agents. But unexpectedly, by the orders of the Patriarch, whose resident is next to the church, the church closed its door to the young students who were arrested by government agents. Adding insult to the injury, the Patriarch claimed that the church will not give shelter to criminals and allowed police to enter the compound and forcefully remove students who already made their way into the Church. Forget the Church way of viewing the situation but labeling the youth who are even 'innocent until proven guilty' in human law as criminals pointed to his strong affiliation to the regime.

Then came the argument with Lideta Church in Addis Ababa which resulted in many labeling him as  'money greedy'. The Orthodox church in general and specific churches were part of the relief and development activities of the country by assisting HIV patients, building schools and feeding the poor under funds collected from believers and other sources. The leaders of the Lideta church planned to construct a 3 story building near the church to serve as a free kindergarden and clinic for the people in the area. So they started saving money in a separate account for the construction and announced a bid for construction of the building. The patriarch and his office were furious with the move and asked the church to suspend the activity, give the money to his office, submit project proposal and wait for a decision if the project is allowed or not. The community forced the church to reject the decision and they continued with the construction. The patriarch and his co replaced the leaders of Lideta church but the community refused to allow the new leaders in so the patriarch took the case to the court. The Lideta church and the community refused to argue in the court stating the fact that the court has no jurisdiction in religious affairs. But the court ruled that police force the previous leader and support as the new leader moves into the church. The community stand against the treat of police force which flood in masses to the area. Violence erupted after police battled on the streets with the people of the area with as many as 700 people arrested and more than 30 people injured including 2 police officers. The new leader eventually moved into the church and the clinic and kindergarden project was scrapped and the building became a shopping mall bringing more money to the cash hungry patriarch.

After things became violent during the 2005 GC Ethiopian election, everyone was expecting the patriarch to intervene and call for calm and peace. But the patriarch was no where to be seen even when a collection of elder Ethiopians negotiated with the government and the opposition to bring some calm to a tense situation. many saw this silence as a sign that he doesnt want to see the fall of the regime and whenever he had problems inside the church he was always calling for the government for help. In an indication of this close fondness Abune Paulos passed away five days before the prime minister born in the same city as him was announced dead. 

Ethiopian Diaspora Business Forum: A delusional gathering

The Ethiopian Diaspora Business Forum was held on July 14, 2012 at George Washington University in Washington DC. The forum heard from Zemedeneh Negatu, managing partner of Ernest and Young Ethiopia and one of the highly respected business professional in Ethiopia, and other business people from Ethiopia on issues ranging from investment opportunities to ICT revolution in Ethiopia [1]. One thing that distinguishes this gathering is the optimistic views that they wanted to radiate about Ethiopia in general and the specific topics of business and investment in the country. But these detached and deluded elite represent a small portion of the influential population in the country and they are often labeled as people with a comfortable plan B if their small delusional plan A - doing business in Ethiopia fails.

I am not merely making reckless accusations against a forum based on different ideology but rather common interest shared with many in the forum. We all want our country prosper and our people achieve a sufficient standard of living that improves in time. But we have to be pragmatic and call things as they are. Ethiopia in its current form is not suitable for investment at all, there is no such thing as ICT revolution in Ethiopia because there is no ICT to begin with. 

I respect the positive influence Mr. Zemedeneh was able to create in Ethiopia because even a single job created because of his involvement is helpful to the country. But on the other side the millions that the investors spend on corruption to create that single job opportunity is enhancing the corrupt system making the total contribution of Zemedeneh and Co. a zero sum. In another post I argued that Ethiopia is not a suitable investment destination by pointing out facts like it has a bad Ease of Doing Business (EDB) rank in the world that even deteriorated last year, lack of transparent financial sector, wide spread corruption, political instability and lack of skilled man power and infrastructure [2]. Despite the attempt of the forum to gold paint the facts in Ethiopia based on good intentions, the clear fact in the country remains that it is not suitable to business at all. United Nation recently released a world investment report for 2012 and it showed foreign direct investment (FDI) to Ethiopia falls by $80 million to be $208 million while Ghana with 25 million population had a FDI of $3.2billion showing an increase of about $700 million from previous year and Kenya amassed FDI of $335 million showing an increase of $150 million [3].  This showed complete lack of confidence by investors to look in the direction of Ethiopia. 

The forum also held a panel on ICT revolution in Ethiopia though many including me argue the non-existence of ICT and telecommunication in Ethiopia.  In his well written article Timo Deresu labeled the ICT in Ethiopia politically biased, bureaucratic, unfairly expensive and comparatively backward [4].  Even in comparison to other African countries such as Kenya or Rwanda, Ethiopia's ICT is lagging behind in at least a decade. As a result the panel discussion on ICT was a total waste with no use for the country, the professionals and investors as it lacks adequate topics as well as speakers with hands on experience of the case in Ethiopia. I appreciate the forum for including ICT in their forum, since the topic is important for the development of a country in the 21st century. I would suggest that the panel discussion be held by inviting people from the government ministry, any opposition party participant interested in the topic, private ICT companies, professionals and activists to discuss the issue openly and if possible agree towards a national ICT plan.      

In conclusion, despite the commendable effort to energize the business community towards investing in Ethiopia by considering important topics, the Ethiopian Diaspora Business forum is to far from reality to be effective organization.

[1] - http://www.theethiopianamerican.com/speakers.php
[2] - http://zethiopiatimes.blogspot.com/2012/06/planning-to-invest-in-ethiopia.html
[3] - http://www.unctad-docs.org/files/UNCTAD-WIR2012-Full-en.pdf
[3] - http://www.anyuakmedia.com/Ethionews_temp_11_6_16.html

Planning to Invest in Ethiopia?

So if you are a diaspora Ethiopian or a foreign investor looking for good prospects of investments in Africa, what is the investment situation in Ethiopia? Everyone knows that it is risky to do business in a country that you have little knowledge of and, this article presents facts you should know before deciding whether you want to invest in the country or not.

The first important criteria in deciding before investing in a country is economic factor which include issues such as interest rate, taxes, loan availability, money value and special incentives from the country. Since almost all countries in the world are striving to attract investors into their countries, there is a stiff competition to create more favorable economic conditions for investors. The most widely accepted standard metric to compare the business friendliness  of two countries is the International Ease of Doing Business (EDB) rank developed by the world bank. Looking at the rank, Ethiopia just continues to fall quickly losing 7 places in the 2012 rank and placed as the 111th favorable country to do business in out of 183 countries [1]. This is better than uganda which is at 123rd and Eritrea at 180 but worse than Rwanda which continues to register remarkable growth to be the 45th best place to do business in 2012 from its rank of 143 in 2008. I chose Rwanda as a best performing example because the country had to overcome a horrible violence in the 90s, where Ethiopian soldiers were sent as peacekeepers, to register successive economic progress. Note that Rwanda is also ruled by a mild authoritarian who is not shy to claim that his 95% election victory (though less than the 99.6% victory of EPRDF claimed).

So looking at these facts even though the Ethiopian government is trying to introduce reforms in the business sector, lack of transparency in the financia sector, prohibition of foreign investors in big sectors such as telecommunication and finance, the ever present enormous corruption which drives out more than $3billion money out of the country illegally [2] makes the country ill equipped for investment. Furthermore, lack of any successful foreign private investment [9] and absence of patent laws in the country flashes a red light in the mind of possible investors. An interesting fact is that the share of the private investment in Ethiopia in the current regime barely moved in statistics over its previous regime which followed communism and restrict private growth. 

The second important factor in deciding a place to invest is political stability. The direct relationship between political process and business  is clearly visible in the current European and World economic crisis which need the proper political support for easing the tension among investors. The relatively stable political arrangements in Greece, Italy and even Zimbabwe have played an enormous effect to boost investor confidence towards investing in the countries. When it comes to Ethiopia, after the doomed 2005 election the political space seems to be diminishing and Ethiopia is going towards pure authoritarianism matched only in few countries in the world with more than 99% of the parliament taken by one party on a "free & fair" election. Inaddition the location of the country in the volatile East bordered by Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea makes it prone to wars and insecurities. Furthermore, the presence of a handful of rebel movements such as OLF in the south and central Ethiopia, ONLF in easter Ethiopia, EPPF in north-west Ethiopia and the ghostly Ginbot 7 movement with roots in the military and urban population makes the country an unlikely investment destination. With Only 50% of the local population feeling safe to walk alone in the evening, 25% of people experiencing theft in a country of 80 million and random killing of civilians by armed security agents in broad day light happening in the country, taking your money to Ethiopia might be a high risk to take [3 4]. 

Another important factor in establishing an investment is presence of infrastructure and skilled man power in the country. With Ethiopia ranked among the top brain drain hit countries in the world, it is no surprise that most skill requiring tasks in the country are carried out by foreign employees mostly from China and India [5]. Furthermore, the frequent power outings in the country [7] and the unreliable ICT infrastructure [6], which are both shielded from foreign investment, add more financial burden to an investor. Inaddition lack of fair competition with presence of party owned enterprises dominating the major businesses and ethnic based despotism rule through out the country, the country is economically unsuitable and probably more dangerous for Ethiopian diaspora. 

[1]-http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings

[2]-http://blogs.wsj.com/corruption-currents/2011/12/05/ethiopian-illicit-outflows-doubled-in-2009-new-report-says/?mod=google_news_blog

[3]-http://www.prosperity.com/country.aspx?id=ET 

[4]-http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/south_bay&id=7912607

[5]-http://allafrica.com/stories/200709040438.html

[6]-http://www.zehabesha.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ict-ethiopia-1.pdf

[7]-http://nazret.com/blog/index.php/2011/06/17/ethiopia-power-outage-hits-as-hillary-clinton-addresses-au-in-addis?blog=15

[9]- http://www.economist.com/node/10062658?story_id=10062658

Fixing EPRDF's mistakes - Part II Higher Education

This is second part of a series that highlight political and policy based mistakes by the EPRDF government. While the main aim is raising awareness of the general public, policy makers and politicians from EPRDF can see it as an independent view into their system and opposition parties can use it as a basis to build their campaign activities.

Before the current EPRDF government usurped power in 1991, Ethiopia had two higher education institutes, Alemaya and Addis Ababa University with an enrollment ratio of around 0.3%, among one of the lowest in the world. After the EPRDF took over the country, there was a sense of hope from the university community that academic freedom will be granted and that the universities will be free from political interference. But all hopes were dashed after the EPRDF government meddled in the university structure even from its early days in power and fired 40 university professors from Addis Ababa University because of their different political opinion than the regime.

Afterwards under a tight control of the government in their internal affairs, the number of universities blossomed through out the country to reach 14 by the end of 2003 and 23 by the end of 2009. While this rapid expansion of the universities was done based on number of population and even distribution of universities across all regions, there were a few that were started due to political pressure from the public. But even in those cases, the main issue remains the people's commendable apetite for a higher education institute and the governments willingness to establish them. This was a positive move by the government to increase investment in construction and higher education, increase enrollment rate and create a skilled man power for the country.

But building universities without a proper management, qualified personnel and national agenda is useless. All the universities including the once famous Addis Ababa University are focused on accommodating all the students who are flocking in masses. Rather  than focusing on delivering high quality education and problem solving researches, universities nowadays are concentrating on building dormitories. Thats why out of the top 100 universities in Africa, there are only 2 Ethiopian universities in a list that includes 6 Kenyan universities. The government turned deaf ear to repeated plea by academicians to halt the expansion of the number of higher education after the first phase of expansion and focus towards enhancing the quality of the already existing universities.  After the number of universities increased to 14 in the first phase, what the government should have done was improve quality of accommodation, teaching and research on these universities as a means to gain insights before building more. But the government opted to start a second phase by building 9 more universities and ignore the deteriorating quality in already existing universities.

A recent study identified that the quality of Ethiopian higher education institute is depreciating in an alarming rate due to a number of policy related issues. The main problem stated is absence of competent structured management and lack of motivation, direction and vision in the existing system. Most university presidents are hand picked by the government after proving their loyality to the ruling party. This will shield them from any criticism from their subordinates. Following the ethnic based ideology of the ruling party, the current universities and research centers in Ethiopia are starting to include the ethnic background of academic and administrative professional as an informal criteria before he/she is hired by the departments. This top-to-bottom level political interference at all levels of the academic institute is also obstructing national unity on higher education policies and candid discussions abut problems engulfing the institutes.

Another big problem facing the universities is lack of qualified instructors mainly due to unfavorable working conditions and mass exodus on university instructors to Europe and USA. It is a widely known fact that instructors joint universities to make their escape from the country easier. And further affecting quality of education, the universities begin new departments with one digit instructors without any clear vision, mission or research outlook and advantage to the country. Contrary to international practice, there are even post graduate programs in Ethiopia without a single supervising professor or ongoing research in the department. The international standard of operation of the universities is completely ignored in Ethiopia and this has led to the flooding of the job market with many unqualified graduates. At the time where the government is vociferous about the prospects of Ethiopia becoming a middle income country in the near future, it seems to forget that foreign investment in a country is directly related to the existence of competent qualified graduates.

So the government or the opposition should think of better ways to manage the universities than the current situation where a lot of country resource is being wasted under the auspice of HIGHER education.

Response to Samuel Gebru: Ethiopia at 2012 G8 Summit: Abebe Gellaw Only Embarrassed Himself

I read the article by Mr. Samuel [1] on the Abebe-Meles incident at the G8 meeting in Washington DC, where Mr. Meles Zenawi was interrupted by a series of heckling allegations from Journalist Abebe Gelaw. Mr. Samuel's main point is lets try to talk to and reason out with the Ethiopian government officials. That idea would have been possible had the officials been those Mr. Samuel is familiar with in the United States not the ones from Ethiopia.

Mr. Samuel had been too Americanized or turned a blind eye to EPRDF's mistakes to observe that, not even a single government official invites journalists from private press on their interviews. He has been blinded by the fact that all of the Ethiopian officials speak the same language while discussing their policy indicating lack of personal confidence. Mr. Meles and his colleagues have been riding an unchallenged wave of ruling when it comes to their policies albeit the silent parliament. And in rare cases they are challenged never have they admitted mistakes or propose to look the other side of the story.

Two years back, during the hype times of the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) Mr. Meles was presenting his report to the parliament and the only opposition member of the parliament, Mr Girma Seyfu, challenged Meles on a politically inclined question. Looking how confident the prime minister was on success of the plan touted as having no flaws, Mr. Girma asked Meles to review the progress after two years and leave his post if the plan isn't going according to what the government predicted. This seems like a reasonable political question that a person of Meles's caliber should handle. But Meles crumbled and avoided the question. In another incident a few years back, the head of the federal auditor presented a report to the parliament alleging that the government has borrowed more money from the central bank. Instead of proposing to look into the situation and find solutions to the problem, the vulgar Meles blasted the head of the agency and accused him of making mistakes while adding numbers[2].

This contagious avoiding of challenges goes to the poorly assembled cabinet as well. After finding out that 80% of the Ethiopian medical students want to leave the country after they finish their study, a BBC journalist asks the health minister Dr. Tewodros Adhanom what he thinks about the situation. (Watch the video clip after 4:00) As far as I see it, this is a a major problem that is related with salary, working condition, management problem at the Ethiopian hospitals. But for the government official this was a matter of demand-and-supply. And his solution, drive five times students into the medical school without considering about the issue of quality. My point is that, it is hard to reason out with such officials who are still in a jungle state of mind. For example, I don't understand how can one in a fair state of mind challenge Mr. Seyoum Mesfin who boldly lied to the Ethiopian people about Badme. Challenging officials is only possible if he/she is elected by the people, knows his full responsibility, has enough knowledge about the issue.

Mr. Samuel missed the fact that it is not the Ethio-American diaspora who has to be criticized but the government officials. The officials rather than ignoring the worries of the diaspora community reflected on foreign media outlets, they should challenge the ideas and state a response. For example the diaspora community has criticized the issue of cheap land sale to foreign investors and the official government office responsible should argue their points for supporting the proposal such as the fact that most of the purchase is done by Ethiopian nationals. Only when the official positions are taken by professionals like Dr. Eleni G/Medhin of ECX, who takes time to argue her points [3] or explain her objective [4] to anyone who asks a question, should the diaspora challenge the officials.

[1]. Nazret - http://nazret.com/blog/index.php/2012/05/22/ethiopia-at-2012-g8-summit-abebe-gellaw-only-embarrassed-himself?blog=15

[2]. Capital - http://capitalethiopia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=647:-meles-needs-to-let-parliament-be-the-boss&catid=41:society&Itemid=59

[3]. Nazret - http://nazret.com/blog/index.php/2012/03/24/ethiopia-commodity-exchange-responds-to-wondwossen-mezlekia-s-article?blog=15

[4]. Nazret - http://nazret.com/blog/index.php/2009/10/29/will_the_real_poor_farmer_rise_by_eleni_?blog=15

Meles Zenawi at G8 summit

When it was announced that Meles Zenawi was invited by President Obama as one of the four representatives of Africa, the foreign based Ethiopian human right and democracy activists reacted with furor. There were also government supporters who were pleased with the invitation, because they claim that it shows United States recognizes Meles's positive influence in Ethiopia as exemplary to other Africans. I would argue that this invitation was an embarrassment to Meles Zenawi on all fronts and he acted like a typical African dictator who jumps in a wagon for any trip to the west.

First and foremost Meles was invited to the conference to represent Africa on hunger talks [1].  Yup the whole world remembers Ethiopia's worst drought in the 1980s and still the country is viewed as a representative of Africa's hunger. And even with the government boasting a consecutive double digit economic growth for the past 8 years, 8.2 million people that account for 10% of the country's population are chronically food insecure [3].

Then at a conference where Meles was talking about food security and Africa, a fellow activist Abebe Gelaw heckled Meles Zenawi [2]. Meles, as he is often does, jumps to the jungle way of thought and tried to power through the situation by speaking loudly as the moderator was calling for security. The activist's claim of Meles being a killer and a dictator was loudly heard all over the hall and Meles was seen with a clear anger and surprise. This is exactly how Meles and his cardes heckle fellow journalists and activists back home so all I have to say is Meles got a taste of his own medicine.

1. WBOC
2. YouTube
3. OneWorld

Fixing EPRDF's mistakes - part I Telecommunication

If we can express the past 20 years of Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation or the current Ethio-Telecom in one word it will be 'inefficient'. Compared to the progress made in other African countries in the expansion of telecommunication services at an affordable price driven by market competition, the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation's progress has been slow. And many have blamed the government as it tightly controls the industry. The political and economic interest of the government in the industry is the main reason behind the inefficiency.