The sudden departure last week of Miheret Debebe…

It is not in the habit of the Revolutionary Democrats to offer a cordial farewell to people who have served them professionally, loyally and for a long time, gossip observed. Quite a large number of people, who once served in senior positions in the administration, would have a story tell of neglect and unceremonious departure from the institution they headed for so long, claims gossip.

The sudden departure last week of Miheret Debebe, the longest serving CEO of the state owned utility company, is but one incident, claims gossip. After serving the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) for 16 years, Miheret had the responsibility of uplifting the nation’s power generation capacity from a little over 350Mw to the current 2,000Mw plus. The nutshell of this was a result where the nation’s geographic area covered with electricity grew from 16pc to 41pc. The company he leads has grown leaps and bounds during his reign, and ushered in the launching of the largest dam on the continent, the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Under his watch, Ethiopia has reached a historical place in being an exporter of electric power to neighbouring countries, such as Djibouti and Sudan.

It is true that the public has become frustrated with the frequent and seemingly endless power interruptions over the years, gossip observed. It was all the more of a national embarrassment to see power blackouts during public addresses of international personalities, such us Hilary Clinton and Dilma Rousseff, the Brazilian president. Sadly, the excuses offered by Miheret and his management explaining why this occurs never satisfied the public.

Nonetheless, those in the gossip corridors saw the manner in which his removal from office was carried out as dreadful. While Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn had agreed with his ministers to remove him the previous week, Miheret was kept in the dark about his fate – despite being part of Hailemariam’s delegation that attended a summit in Paris.

In the afternoon of Thursday, December 5, 2013, the board of directors of the EEPCo, chaired by Debretsion G. Michael, minister of Communications & Information Technology, decided to remove Miheret and replace him with Azeb Asnake, project manager of the Gilgel Gibe III, gossip disclosed. It was not until the following Tuesday, after the grapevine had a leak, that Debretsion took the time to brief Miheret on his removal, gossip revealed. Although the grapevine has the story that Miheret was appointed as an advisor to the Prime Minister, gossip could not confirm a letter of appointment from his office up until the press time of this paper.

Subsequently, gossip corridors in town went viral, speculating on his rather unexpected removal. Never mind Miheret has been on the record since the time of the late Meles Zenawi expressing his wishes to retire from public service, according to gossip. Ironically though, he was never made to take part in the undertakings of the “reform taskforce”, whose office near Edna Mall was kept afar from the EEPCo’s headquarters at Charles de Gaulle Square, up in Piazza.

There has been some tension between Miheret and some of the board directors, which has intensified since the passing of Meles, who was determined in providing him with protection from political pressures, claims gossip. Known to be a soft spoken and competent professional, speaking four languages – Amharic, English, French and German – Miheret was not in good favour with Alemayehu Tegenu, minister of Water,Irrigation & Energy – a federal agency responsible for policy affairs of the EEPCo’s operations, claims gossip.

However, the deeper fallout Miheret suffers comes in his relationship with Kinfe Dagnew (B. Gen.), a top brace military general in charge of the Metal & Engineering Corporation (MeTEC), gossip disclosed. Miheret has been critical of the inclusion of Kinfe as a board director of the EEPCo arguing that there is an apparent conflict of interest, as the MeTEC takes major projects from the state owned utility monopoly as a contractor, according to gossip. The electromechanical part of the GERD is jointly carried out by a Chinese company and the MeTEC, while the EEPCo was made to give the business of assembling hundreds of power transformers to the MeTEC.

Miheret may have felt that he could not supervise a company to whom contracts were awarded with a CEO who is literally his boss in the board of directors, gossip claims. Navigating through such troubled water is now left to Azeb, claims gossip. 


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