Meles denies food to opposition members

Ethiopian opposition parties said on Wednesday that their members were being refused food aid to force them to join the ruling party before national elections are held in May next year.

The Ethiopian government says 6.2 million people will need emergency foo

d this year and has appealed to the international community for help.

Another 7 million Ethiopians are part of a long-running food-for-work scheme, which means more than 13 million of the country's 80 million people rely on aid to survive.

"Our members can't get on the food-for-work scheme," Gebru Asrat, spokesman for the opposition coalition Medrek, told Reuters. "Only ruling party members can now join the programme, so it forces desperate people to leave the opposition."

People who joined the ruling party would not be able to work for the opposition or stand as opposition candidates.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's administration rejected the opposition complaint.

"It's simply a ridiculous and outrageous thing to say," Bereket Simon, government head of information, told Reuters.

He said the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) party had fewer than half the number of people currently enrolled in the food-for-work scheme.

Aid workers say a five-year drought is afflicting more than 23 million people in seven east African nations, with Ethiopia worst affected. Ethiopia's latest appeal came on the 25th anniversary of the 1984 famine that killed more than 1 million.

"PROGRAMME FOR POOR, NOT POLITICS"

"The government is trying to control what parties people join," Medrek's Gebru said. "Food aid should not be used as a political weapon."

Medrek is a coalition of eight parties and is seen as the most serious threat to Meles' nearly 20 years in power.

The prime minister has agreed a "code of conduct" for the elections with three parliamentary opposition parties -- two of which opponents say are government "satellites".

Medrek refused to sign that agreement, demanding bilateral negotiations with the government on issues that they say were left out of the deal, including reform of the electoral board.

The government strongly denied the allegations of food being withheld from the opposition. "That programme is designed to help the poor in our society. Ethiopia doesn't discriminate on political grounds when distributing food," Bereket said.

Security forces killed about 200 protesters after the opposition said the government rigged elections in 2005. Seven policemen were also killed. Most analysts agree Meles' EPRDF will win easily at the ballot box next year.

The opposition says this is because candidates are routinely intimidated and jailed -- mostly in remote areas outside the capital Addis Ababa. The government says the opposition has no chance of victory and just wants to discredit the poll.

Ethiopia has never had a peaceful transition of power. Meles took over in 1991 after a rebel group led by him and others overthrew a communist regime.

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In Ethiopia, 10,000 tons of coffee vanishes in one month

DBE to buyout flower growers debt

Meles Angered of the Coffee Issue

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi last Wednesday took a firm tone when discussing issues concerning the horticulture and coffee sectors.

During the full-day discussion Meles scolded coffee exporters saying they are making the industry into a family business and ignoring the benefit of the country.
Meles said that the government is going to “cut the hands” of those committing grave crimes against the country as of January 9, 2009.
He further said that 10,000 tons of coffee bound for export has disappeared recently and added that the government is vigorously investigating the case.
At current global prices, 10,000 tons is worth about 20 to 23 million dollars.
Ethiopia produces about 200,000 tons of coffee a year, half of which is consumed locally.
The country’s production is just a small fraction of the world’s coffee, dwarfed by giants like Brazil, Colombia and Vietnam. However, the quality and potential holds a key to unlocking prosperity in one of Africa’s poorest countries, an expert in the coffee sector commented.
At the discussion that predominately held coffee exporters responsible for mishandling the country’s biggest foreign currency earner, Meles warned exporters that work with different licenses both as suppliers and buyers to cease their illegal practice. He said that government is going to take severe actions on those who are dishonestly working in the sector.
During the discussion the PM cited the sector’s performance as a reason for the steep decline of the foreign currency income by the sector from past years.
Replying to Meles’ questions, coffee exporters blamed the problem on the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX), saying it has delivery and storage troubles.
Eleni Zaude G. Medihin, CEO of ECX, denied these accusations.
The exporters further said the global economic crisis has hit sales hard and that banks are tightening credit for their customers.
But experts in the sector said that the effect of the global crisis is not more than 5% on the coffee market.
Moreover, the ECX price index is relatively higher than the New York Stock Market that fluctuates minute by minute.
Coffee earned 525 million dollars in the 2007/08 fiscal year.
Some 12 million people are dependent on the coffee industry. Ethiopia’s key markets are Germany, Japan, USA, France, the Middle East and Scandinavian countries.

On horticulture
Meles has also held discussions with flower farm owners who appealed for extensions of loan repayment periods.
During their discussion, some flower growers who began operations taking loans from private banks appealed to the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) to take over their project after settling the loan.
The growers said that private banks are not interested in long-term loans and these farms could not handle the pressure of the private banks for repayment.
DBE officials during the discussion accepted the appeal and said that if the cash flow of the company is considered healthy DBE would service the loan payments for the private banks and would transfer the company to ownership as collateral.
According to DBE’s credit policy ratified by the Public Financial Enterprises Agency - the regulator of state-owned financial institutions - headed by Dr. Eyob Tesfaye on September 25, 2008, the bank could buyout performing loans found in government and private banks. According to the bank’s lending policy, investments in all agricultural products, excluding oilseeds, pulses and gums, all manufactured industry products, excluding hides and skins, agro-processed products and manufactured goods are considered as priority areas.
With the newly approved credit policy, the bank is allowed to take over loans found in other banks upon the request of a borrower.
Another issue that was raised is the one-year grace period the bank gives to its clients. The growers said that repayment time would arrive before they could even start setting up the greenhouses they use for their products.
The borrowers appealed for the extension of the one-year grace period to two years, a request Meles said would be taken under consideration.
The other bottleneck growers raised is the repayment period of five years, which they said could not be achieved by investors in the sector. They subsequently requested a seven to ten year repayment period.
Meles told sector representatives these, and other issues, including freight service by Ethiopian Airlines would be considered.

Millionaires were born out of famine aid

Courtesy of Ethiomedia

Gebre Medin Araya's, Ye Tigrai Be Telat EMewdeq..(The fall of Tigrai into the hand of the enemy, and the repercussions in the rest of Ethiopia) part one and two, fourteen pages in Amharic, is a timely piece on this 25th anniversary of the famine in our country. Sadly, another famine is unfolding at this very moment and those who want to make money out of it are well organized as usual. The author of two books in recent times, Asgede G. Selassie's "Saw Berasu Samba... (People are muzzled) also exposes what he knows about the current situation in Tigrai, famine and politics.

Asgede on his recent interview with Reporter identified many places in Tigrai that are drought-stricken. However, the regions suffering from drought in Ethiopia currently, BBC and other foreign medias showed Tigrai as non-drought area. This is not a surprise and deliberately a misinformation campaign by TPLF. The foreign media got their information from the regime in power and took its word without checking other resources.

This false information is purposely designed to misinform the Ethiopian people that Tigrai region is a beneficiary of the government. The propaganda of other regions in Ethiopia to learn from Tigrai was deliberately orchestrated to isolate the people of Tigrai from other Ethiopians.

In his educational piece, which I recommend everyone to read, Gebremedhin exposes how TPLF made a fortune of the 1984 famine which resulted in launching the huge business conglomerate EFFORT. The $100 million dollars Live Aid's Bob Geldof handed over to Meles Zenawi and Sebhat Nega when he invited them to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, needs further investigation. It is a big robbery unknown for many of us, especially for those who donated their money after they saw the heartbreaking images of hungry Ethiopian children.

The $100 million was kept between Meles Zenawi and Sebhat Nega, who deposited in their foreign accounts. We have the right to ask Bob Geldof to tell us what he knows. We know this money had not reached the dying and starving people in whose name the money was collected.

The tons of food shipped via Port Sudan and reached TPLF also to Arab businesses, which will be very hard to track what happened . However, by exposing such criminal activities of TPLF, we can alert foreign donors not to hand over their aid to be controlled by TPLF and its Sudan collaborators. We know that the Sudanese Port is the port chosen by TPLF to unload foods and other donated materials for the starving people this time.

Famine has been a gold mine for TPLF bosses. Their wealth back home and in foreign countries is at the expense of dead children, women and the elderly. It is time to bring these criminals to justice. There is no statue of limitations on such crime