Triage or Travesty? In Defense of the Indefensible

By Kebour Ghenna

Ato Dawit Aklilu’s defense of the former governor of Ethiopia’s National Bank reads like a field manual for managing expectations. With calm authority, he waves away the pain, dismisses the costs, and wraps up the whole affair in the warm blanket of “basic economics.”

But let us not be too quick to congratulate ourselves for surviving a punch in the gut by insisting it was for our own good.

Dawit tells us,  the economy was in distress. Yes, reforms were needed. Yes, the exchange rate system had been warped by years of dual pricing, rent-seeking, and arbitrage. Yes, we get it. But here’s the real question: was that the only path forward? Or just the only one acceptable to those pulling the strings from Washington and Paris?

To call this “triage” is to suggest that the patient might otherwise have died on the table. But what if the surgeon arrived with the wrong tools, a shaky hand, and instructions from abroad?

Devaluing the birr, let’s call it what it really was, a shock therapy cooked up in a PowerPoint presentation,  did not “liberate” the Ethiopian economy. It suffocated it.

Prices soared overnight. Importers gasped. Households scrambled. Businesses, already reeling from conflict and broken supply chains, were handed a cement block and told to swim.

What’s worse, this was not followed by a real plan to build local production, secure energy, or improve logistics. We got the “adjustment” without the “transformation.” The belt was tightened, but the trousers still fell.

Ato Aklilu defends “central bank independence” as a virtue in itself. But independence from whom?

Let’s be clear: In countries with strong institutions and accountable politics, independence can protect monetary policy from short-term populism. But in countries like Ethiopia, where sovereignty itself is fragile, central bank independence often translates to outsourcing policy to the IMF.

That’s not independence. That’s abdication.

And when no Parliament debates it, no public understands it, and no industrial policy supports it,  what we get is an institution that answers more to DC than Addis Ababa.

Ah, but we’re told not to shoot the messenger. That’s rich. This isn’t about a personal vendetta. It’s not about one man. It’s about the governorship,  a seat of immense national responsibility, especially in times of turmoil.

Yes, experience matters. But whose experience are we rewarding? The experience of implementing policies that enrich lenders, crush local firms, and set us back a decade?

Promoting this man to the African Development Bank isn’t a badge of merit,  it’s a signal. A signal to every finance minister on the continent: Do what the donors say, and your career will soar.

We are told to move on. That we need “solutions, not scapegoats.” Fine. But let’s be honest: if we can’t name what went wrong, how will we ever fix it?

Anyway, this is not about romanticizing broken exchange regimes. It’s about calling out a model that promises discipline and delivers devastation.

Triage, Mr. Dawit? No, this was a textbook amputation without anesthesia. And the worst part? We’re still bleeding.

Let’s stop treating orthodoxy as inevitability. Let’s stop mistaking pain for progress. And let’s start asking harder questions,  before the next surgeon arrives with sharper scissors.

Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com  

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