ECADF
"I believe all stakeholders should play their own little role to curb this damage. We have to expose corrupted big government officials! Their wrong doing should be exposed openly to the public."
Have you seen a movie titled ”me, myself and Irine” or ”me and Marely”? Both are my favorite movies. When I decided to write article about corruption what it does to me and my country. The title concept of these movies clicked to my mind. I borrowed the concept, convinced it will explain the theme of my article. In this article I will try to discuss the harm corruption can cause to an individual that is me and my country. I will also try to shade some light on the issue from the global perspective by putting the international community role on top of it. I will try to point out corruption effect in Ethiopia, its cause in my view, international community reaction towards it, my personal encounter in corruption and the possible remedy in my conclusion. One can imagine that it will be difficult to comperes all these ideas in one article. However I will try my best.How big is Corruption in Ethiopia?
According to the Global Financial Integrity, (GFI) which tracks illicit financial flows out of developing countries worldwide. The amount of money that Ethiopia lost by smuggling cash out of the country , both by the government and the private sector between 2001 and 2010 totals 16.5 billion of USD. GIF’s statistics are based on official data provided by Ethiopian government, World Bank & IMF.
Ethiopia also ranks 141 out of 176 countries in the corruption index of transparency International.
According to a report by UNDP on January 5, 2012, 8 Billion USD secretly taken out of Ethiopia, in the span of 10 years.
On October 6, 2014 another report from Transparency International revealed that, Ethiopia suffers from high levels of bribery. In its public opinion published the same year.
In another report from UNDP in 2014 the illicit financial flow was estimated to be a little over 3 billion USD, in the other hand the country total gain of a hard currency manly from remittance plus export is a little shy from 3 billion USD in the same physical year. How worse can it get?
The list could go on and on.
But to show how rampant it already got, mentioning a recent incident will worth it. A highly positioned person from the ruling party of Ethiopia has been caught in London Heathrow airport with cash money of 5 million sterling pounds all the way from Addis Ababa. This alone is a perfect case to show how ridiculously rampant and big corruption is in Ethiopia. I mean How rampant or big can it get?
Developmental states and corruption
Its known that the developmental state is , a state-led macroeconomic planning. Theoretically it’s a model of capitalism, where by the state has more independence or autonomous political power and more control over the economy. Its highly characterized by strong state intervention , extensive regulation and planning.
In my understanding the current regime of Ethiopia proclaim its self a “Revolutionary Democracy” , that gives the state a limitless control basically over anything and everything. Than its prescribed in a developmental state at least theoretically. This excessive control of the state enable the authorities to manipulate the state structure to conduct a systematic corruption.
Academicians put forward various arguments theoretically both pro and against. However, I am a practical person. I have experienced firsthand what it means to conduct business in a proclaimed “revolutionary democrat” state. And to save everyone from off use fancy “intellectual” arguments with confusing jargon. I can share my experience. That, it’s extremely difficult to conduct a clean business. Such ideological model is highly exposed to corruption. It’s systematically corrupted beyond words. This is from my day to day experience in the real world.
This ideological loophole, in my view is also a ground for the undemocratic essence plus true identity of the Ethiopian “Revolutionary Democrat” regime. Like the corruption, the dictatorial ship of the regime conducted systematically. The regime has the perfect camouflage that disguise its dictatorial nature. Conducting elections every five years is its main camouflage.
But what happened in all these elections? We take a look at the last three elections by the current regime. In all elections death, imprisonment and persecution of opposition political leaders are common recipes. There are more than sufficient evidences that confirm rigging of votes. The ruling dictatorial regime use all the government structure and its famous 1 to 5 scheme to diminish any other alternative. As a result all the elections end up being dramas. The dictatorial regime being the worst ”drama queen”.
The most amusing part of the recent election is, the 100% win that the ruling party claims. Is that even possible in an election? Yeah! It was possible once. Sadam Hussine the former president of Iraq claimed once 100% win. So the “Revolutionary Democrats” dictator of the Ethiopian current regime will be the second one to claim 100% win in the world’s modern history. Then I ask my self, was Sadam democratic leader? I think the answer is clear. What was the reaction of the international community towards Sadm’s dictatorial regime? Its a recent phenomena in history. Sadam’s regime was basically destroyed. With the same token what is the reaction of the international community to the Ethiopian dictatorial regime? This leads me to my next point. The International Community.
But to rap it up, here we have a regime, which is systematically corrupted and dictator. The corruption aspect is clearly stipulated from some of the reports of independent bodies mentioned in the beginning. The fact that the regime is a dictator is nothing but a fact. The always controversial elections and the regime worsening persecution of opposition political leaders as well as independent thinkers reflect the fact. What exactly is the International community doing about this systematic dictatorial regime in Ethiopia? Read the rest...
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