In an economy where the biggest hurdles to business…

In an economy where the biggest hurdles to business are access to land and finance, the government’s control of both chokes the private sector to near death. Such is the story in Ethiopia that many of the private sector leaders demonstrate an attitude that is demoralised and indifferent at best, gossip observed.

Ironically, what ails many similar economies in impressing domestic and international investment is not illusive in Ethiopia. Maintaining public order and ensuring peace and stability is perhaps the government’s biggest achievement, if a recent survey conducted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) is to be considered.

Of the 16 tools designed to measure an economy’s competitiveness in the global sphere, access to finance ranks first with nearly 15pc respondents from the private sector complaining about it. On the other hand, not one of them appeared to be worried about peace and stability or theft and crime. With zero percent, they are at the bottom of the list. It is also interesting to see that Africa’s trademark political undertaking – coups – do not cross the minds of the respondents, gossip observed.

Indeed, the story on the ground is consistent to the results of the survey. Members of Ethiopia’s top military brass are far from developing the passion for grabbing political power, claims gossip. They take constitutional order literally, and are thus determined to accept whatever the leaders of the ruling party, with whom many fought alongside, resort to doing, according to gossip.

No doubt senior officers and party bigwigs still rub shoulders at the Golf Club – a retreat that is owned and run by the Ministry of Defence, gossip observed. The test of their loyalty to the spirit and letter of the constitution rather comes if and when an opposition bloc unseats the ruling party from power through a legitimate election, says gossip. For now, many of the senior Generals swear they would stand to defend the constitution regardless of which party wins popular votes; they are up for a test soon, gossip predicts.

With political instability less of a worry to members of the private sector, they seem to cry for access to finance and foreign currency with no light at the end of the tunnel. Theirs is a complaint legitimised by the IMF, which often argues that a private sector that borrowed only 17pc of the near 45 billion Br between June 20012 to June 2013, cannot be taken as a good omen to the sustainability of current economic growth.

Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, who appears to be struggling to tame a bureaucracy that is increasingly becoming rowdy, has an answer to this. He argues, both in public and private meetings, that he knows where his priorities lie in terms of providing access to finance. Adding that he will ensure that no manufacturer or exporter will suffer form a deprivation of domestic loans or foreign exchange under his gaze, gossip observed.

So do some members of the private sector take his remarks literally, according to gossip. A few, such as the Diageo Group, have succeeded in having a private audience with him, through the powerful intermediary of UK’s Ambassador in Ethiopia, Greg Dorey. They were thus able to solve their issue of foreign currency. Many domestic businesses, to which the Prime Minimiser promised his door is always open to, are, however, still knocking to no avail, claims gossip.

Domestic manufacturers with a desperate need for loans are going back and forth between the state owned bank, the Ministry of Industry and the Prime Minister’s Office, gossip disclosed. The Ministry, under Ahmed Abitew, is pushing them to seek for a solution from the Prime Minister’s Office; the latter, under Surafel Mihireteab, is informing them that there is no reason why the Prime Minister needs to be bothered with such mundane issues. Thus, they are left to sort this out with the Ministry of Industry, gossip disclosed.


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