Reading the title I guess the first thing that comes to a student of contemporary Ethiopian history would be John Spencer’s “Ethiopia at Bay”. The book characterizes the combination of crisis that had rendered the country cornered on all fronts, obliging it to fight off nemeses on multiple fronts beginning from the Second Italian conquest up until the dying years of the Imperial hegemony. It reflects on the direct or indirect consequences that had induced the siege mentality among Ethiopians. The siege mentality was palpable, maybe not. Appearances are deceptive. The thing is from other perspectives those three decades following the Second defeat of Italy were hailed as the renaissance era of the country. Looks like Spencer was proven right.
I hope to God the fate of Addis would be any different.
Water, water everywhere; nor a drop to drink
That is the feeling I got, I mean like quoting a line or two from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. The fate of this castaway Mariner who couldn’t get a drop of water to drink while floating on an endless expanse of sea makes one understand the irony of extreme destitution in a city of presumed abundance. I don’t think anybody has got the audacity to deny the abundance. Folks, the City is awash with dirty money. There is a humongous amount of money that circulates in the City that expat hoteliers from North America are moving back home.
And it isn’t just the filthy rich. Even some country folks with visible limited educational background somehow spend money in ‘wads’ around the peripheral districts of the City. The only difference is the latter class takes endless selfies to prove to the whole wide world how incredibly loaded they are. Involuntarily one’s mind wanders to the dark alleys of hold ups and the ransom economy in the country and where and how the blood money is being spent.
It looks like a movie scene straight from the last decades of 18th France. You know what it is like, filthy rich (and its associates of depravity and decadence) sharing space with biblical destitution in a given locality of the City parameter.
You have seen the high-rises. The construction boom is quite unparalleled. Yet the tenement economy is squeezing the wage earning destitute bone dry. By the government’s own account your average tenant in Addis pays more than half his earnings for lodging all the time fending off all sorts of pressure to start a family, if he does to raise more kids and again if he somehow manages to do that to send them to a fancy school. No wonder some folks are acting weird.
One thing is for sure. This cannot last.
A stubborn economy that wouldn’t trickle down
The Premier says the country’s one year export revenue is greater than the combined volume of the last twenty seven years. Okay giving allowance to the hyperbole, the fact of the matter is at 10.7 USD the export revenue for the budget year 2025/2026 is reported as an all-time record and it exceeded the annual target by 14%.
I was thinking of these figures while attending an extended meeting with leaders of organized labor in a cozy conference hall located around Mexico Square. You see, the labor leaders were complaining of being unable to feed their respective families. How come this development dividend couldn’t at least trickle down to the toiling average citizen? The labor leaders were desperately beating their chests trying to solicit pity from the hardened guts of the Company executives ‘look at us…we are working 24/7-yes, we work Sundays as well as we need the OT- yet we are on the verge of starving our families. You have known us for more than a decade. We aren’t used to complaining like this.’
I am not saying the work ethic in Ethiopia is exemplary or something. I know some employees behave like they are doing great favor to their employers for doing what they are being paid for in a country of staggering youth unemployment. It is a crippling mindset threatening productivity in the country-a hangover from the Dergue era where workers were indoctrinated to believe they actually owned the plant.
To this day regulatory organs think they are running ‘a socialist labor paradise’ and threaten employers with the wrath of their administrative punitive measures. The ferenji investors wouldn’t hear of it; bluntly, as it is intimate that they aren’t running some kind of Charity soup kitchen. In this connection, do you know Industries are afraid of retaining large numbers of employees when it is in their best interest to do so? They say it is almost impossible to lose labor once you get him. Labor is like a leech, they reason, you cannot lose it even when you are going on very lean months, it is a thousand times better to pay unlimited OT with limited Head Count knowing quite well that the law frowns up on the practice.
Thus, here is the dilemma. The manufacturing industry is starving for labor. That is absolutely true. Guess what? In a country where the urban youth unemployment rate hovers around 30%!
Labor, labor everywhere labor but not a single willing hand to engage!
A typical Prosperity Menu – እርጥብ
It would be uncouth to blame the unemployed. I mean what if the wage doesn’t cover the daily expenses of a frugal consumer?
Here is the thing, ten years ago a wide eyed fresh graduate straight out of College could afford to order beef or lamb at lunch and might be heard complaining it would be out of his league to give orders at the butcher’s week in and week out. The complaint will always be there. It is in human nature. But these days they are surviving on greasy half mashed potato sandwiches. When I say mashed, don’t expect anything fancy. There is nothing to spice the dish except a generous spread of salt. It is basic-a slice of dry potato sandwich. The only thing that beats me is the source of the greasy texture and taste. It is greasy alright hence the menu-እርጥብ፡፡
A colleague told me that most fresh graduates are living off subsidies from their families back in the province who have got a lifeline to the land. The City has become an exclusive Club for the Rich and the Glam.
Wheelbarrow full of Money and an empty grocery cart
That was how our inimitable history teacher once tried to explain to us the rigors of the Great Depression in America back in the 1930s. We laughed supporting our tummies with both hands-wheelbarrow full of money, and couldn’t buy a cart of groceries!!! He went on to explain ‘when market dynamics fail nothing makes sense…look a farmer drives a flock of sheep to the market to earn a few sum to pay debt, he ends up walking back home practically empty handed. Sheep sold, tractor pawned, debt hardly paid.’
This is what I want to know. Has the market dynamics failed? I couldn’t make head or tail of the recent WB and IMF report heralding the failure of the recent economic policy package they had pegged to extend loans to the FDRE government. They sounded like sadistic psychos.
After conducting a thorough study, at last the WB policy document relative to the state of Ethiopian economy proved what our middle school dropout moms have known all along. PP’s free floating exchange rate policy is going to make our lives miserable.
Though they don’t go into the intricacies of economics and wouldn’t be able to employ the jargon, folks ask basic questions such as-Did the Dergue refuse to let it float freely? How about Ato Meles? He wouldn’t hear of it either? And PP is into it heart and soul- head first legs on air as usual? This is gonna be trouble. I myself had penned an article titled ‘Hang on Tight Les Miserable’ immediately after learning PP was set on floating exchange rate. I wish I were proven wrong!
When it comes to economics instinctively as it is, folks tend to trust Ato Meles. I sure do myself. I spent these past two days tuning to his selected views reflected both at local and international forums like Davos, courtesy of YouTube and I was like did Mamo really know about it? I doubt he did.
I will have to admit, this isn’t just the lot of Addis residents. It holds quite true for all consumers living on wages.
To be continued.
God Bless.
The writer can be reached at : estefanoussamuel@yahoo.com
Editor’s Note: Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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I found your writing is full of confusing jargons. Just floating over substantive burning economic issues with subtle stands redicul All subject except Meles Zenawi