Greed, Corruptions and Sabotage

Such kind of news headlines[1] and editorial pieces from Reporter and Capital ‘Corruption: a menace to the nation! “, “Tightening the nuts and bolts of government machinery “, “Time for national inventory” are a wake up calls and alerts to the government and the people of Ethiopia. Indeed greed, corruptions and Sabotages are lethal combinations which can inflict enormous damages to the economic, political, security and social fabric of any society. For the past years our country is experiencing unusual level of greed, corruptions and sabotages with serious consequences on the economy and the development of the country. The recent statement of the prime minister to the parliament shows the extent and the severity of the problem. Wide spread price gauging, the case of fake gold and embezzlements in key areas of economies which include telecom, commodities, land, housing, currency and banking sectors painfully and sadly pointing to dangerous trends in our society. The practice and prevalence of such corruptive and greedy trends and economic sabotage of any degree must be curtailed and rooted out urgently.

The case of fake gold is outright theft, unparalleled corruptions and it could be and must be well organized sabotage against the people of Ethiopia and the government. It could not be any thing else but designed to undermine and stir trouble to the government and development activities underway in Ethiopia. Elaborate schemes to rob, bankrupt and embarrass the government and our country repeatedly from business people and all levels of civil servants are pointing to highly organized sabotage. The unholy alliance of the business people, the bankers, civil servants of all departments and geologists to empty the public coffer seems no accident at all. The saboteurs repeatedly and boldly replaced the real gold with fake once without setting any alarm in the system. These greedy and shameless creatures must have drawn immense pleasure and satisfactions when the fake gold made it to a foreign country and created maximum embarrassment to the entire nation. One can see the extent of greed, corruptions and the level of organized saboteurs to undermine the state of the economy and set crises of all kind. The frightening part is that not a single person or department came forward to prevent such ugly crime and defend the interest of our people. For a while it seems the saboteurs are in control of the situations and freely manipulate economic activities at will. The system is breached and compromised to alarming degree.

The waste and embezzlements in Telecom Sector is also pointing to serious problems which costs millions the Ethiopian people. Here we are not talking a single incident but deliberate negligence, waste and breaking bidding regulations. Call it negligence or sabotage that act alone costs close to 1.54 billion birr[2] and caused huge denial of essential service and significant reduction of services to the general public. Its impact on the economy and the on going development activity is huge. The telecom sector forced to retreat and may take years to recover. Why and how is this allowed to happen? Why the checks and balances are totally failed? How come the alarm systems are totally silent? Are we talking the system is full of holes and completely breached by saboteurs? Why the government is slow to react and apprehend the culprits? What about the oppositions and civil society’s actions and reactions in eliminating such scourges. The government is very slow and did not even know the problem until the fake gold is rejected by South Africa. Equally the oppositions and the civil society treated the matter as low profile and seem unconcerned. But it is a very serious and critical matter affecting the whole nation in many ways. Theft, robbery and mismanagements of public wealth directly deprive our poor people and the needy precious resources and can exacerbate poverty and hamper economic activities. The boldness and outright robbery carried out openly by many functionaries is a threat and poses serious problems for the government and the state of Ethiopia.

The land and the housing sector is also clearly revels the extent of madness and greed which overtaken the country. Illegal land grabs and sky rocketing land prices are the sign of problem than development. The majority of the populations are completely driven out from the housing markets. In the land of the poor a piece of land fetches millions. The land grabbers forge documents, bribe civil servants setup fake housing communities to skim the innocent of their savings. Public lands and houses are become open targets for fearless and selfish individuals, officials and business establishment alike. According to anti-corruption commission there are 171 illegal housing communities on the top of the existing 197 ones and growing by hours[3]. Land grabbers engage in all kind of illegally criminal activities to retain the land under their possessions. The sad thing is that these kind of lawless and sabotage is carried out openly and without fear. So far the criminals are winning and the penalty is negligible. However, the damage they cause to the economy and the wealth of the nations is undetermined and may run in to billions. In terms of GDP the theft and embezzlement is staggering and unacceptable.

Internal and external hostile forces are waging ceaseless attacks in various fronts to disrupt and scuttle development activities and democratic endeavor in our country. It seems these ones succeeded in hurting and undermining the system. There are elements in the oppositions who scavenge the western capitals to deny Ethiopia from receiving any kind of development loans, aid, and grants. The internal and external saboteurs are seeking to weaken the system by waging economic war to achieve their outdated objectives. The economic sabotage is designed to impoverish the country and create instability to remove the government. Some groups of the oppositions’ hate of the government and federal system literally blinded them not to see the interest of the country at large. Hate is illogical, barbaric and uncivilized mode which can effectively lead to wholesale destructions and savagery. The actions of the hateful oppositions so fare failed to distinguish between the government they despise and the interest of the people of Ethiopia. There are too many greedy people in side the system ready and willing to do the bidding for the hate full oppositions. The evidences are pointing to deliberate and organized assault and to a certain degree the bad guys are successfully infiltrated the system and trying to destroy it openly. Fortunately there is still time for the people of Ethiopia and the government to reverse the trend and clean up the system to benefit the interest of the nation as a whole.

Corruptions and sabotage are hurdles and obstacles for good governess, democratic values and economic development. Therefore there must be no hesitations of any kind from the public and government to wage war to cleanup the culprits permanently. The government must take drastic measures to stop the bleeding and restore confidence in the system. In some cases the government must amputate its parts to get rid off the parasitic side. Ethiopia can only progress if the government and the society determined to wipeout bad elements and saboteurs decisively. So far the effort of the government to wipeout corruption, saboteurs and greedy elements from the system is not deceive and satisfactory enough. The gains and the hard work of many years’ developments should be protected and should not be allowed to waste by saboteurs and corruptive elements. The government can take immediate measures to clean and replenish the system with hardworking, honest patriotic forces. Rebuild civil services and install auditing and alert mechanisms to ensure efficiency and trust in the system. Setup centralized land management, registry and transactions organization. Institute and setup key commodities price monitoring bodies. Expand and empower cooperatives to distribute essential commodities to the needy. Take stern measures against corruptive elements and saboteurs. Educate the public about the harmful affects of grafts and bribes. As the experience of some counties show corruptions, greed and sabotages are inimical to development, peace and good government.

It is the duty and responsibility of this government and every citizen to converge at a single force and clean up corruptions, greed and sabotages from Ethiopia.

Thanks

Abdel , March 27, 2008