Posted by The Ethiopia Observatory (TEO)
by Addis Fortune
Sophia Bekele (Credit: Addis Fortune)
Sophia Bekele, a businesswoman with American citizenship, lost shares auctioned by the United Insurance Company (UNIC), a company where her father was a founding shareholder.
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Tags: Asset seizures, Ethiopians with foreign citizenship, National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), Not owning financial shares, Sophia Bekele vs. NBE, TPLF regime's unlawful acts
"The government [Ethiopian] rules in a kind of commando fashion rather than building up strong governance institutions. This leads to a personalization of politics which raises important questions about the long-term sustainability of the current order. Ministers get involved in micro-managing policy – a practice that cannot be continued if the country does move to a higher level of development.
There will be increasing pressures to open the system up, but the ruling party is very reluctant to do so. It recognizes the need for capacity-building as such, but has yet to fully fathom that it will also have to increasingly cede some decision-making to civil society and autonomous actors in it. Western donors seem intent on pointing out that doing so can be of great benefit to Ethiopia as a whole and will help galvanize rather than impede its development."
NATO Parliamentary Delegation Report
Delegation visited Ethiopia 25-29 October 2010
"When they [government officials] first came they told us an investor was coming and we would develop the land alongside one another. They didn't say the land would be taken away from us entirely. I don't understand why the government took the land."
Farmer Gemechu Garbaba
His wife adds:
"Since the land was taken away from us we are impoverished. Nothing has gone right for us, since these investors came."
Africa succumbs to colonial-style land grab
Channel 4 News, 7 January 2012
