Borkena
Toronto – Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed gave an interview regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
Daniel Kibret, his advisor on social affairs who is also increasingly appearing more like Abiy Ahmed’s government propaganda arm from within the cabinet, was poised as a journalist interviewing the prime minister.
The scene of the interview was also a bit outlandish for an hour long interview. They both sat, at least two meters apart, on the belt of the 145 meters high dam.
The Minister posed, like a journalist, several questions to the prime minister. Abiy Ahmed has been known for exploiting interview sessions and speeches to set an agenda while projecting something that rather appears to be pie in the sky. This particular interview was not an exception.
He highlighted the challenges, mostly a security one for which thousands paid in life, encountered in the course of building the dam. After aggrandizing the role his administration had in the completion of the project, he juxtaposed that the task of “recovering” sea access is much simpler. He is talking about war with Eritrea.
Not just that. He came up with a new economic narrative about the essence of the dam beyond providing electric access to over half of the population. “When we examined the silt soil from the dam, we discovered gold,” he added. This story was not made public before and it is not independently verified. A year or so after he was picked as Prime Minister from the now defunct Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), he declared the discovery of oil and the huge potential it has for Ethiopia. It did not happen.
Noticeably, Abiy Ahmed’s government has been suffering from public trust and legitimacy despite his claim of 15 million membership of his Prosperity Party.
Notably, days after his highly disseminated interview, governor of the national bank, Mamo Mihretu, resigned. Some economists think it signals the failure of the newly introduced macro-economic reform which will inevitably add another layer to Abiy Ahmed’s legitimacy crisis.
The full interview is featured below. Share your views in the comment section.
Video : embedded from Fana Broadcasting Corporate YouTube Channel
Cover photo : Screenshot from the video
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