Ethiopia:Lugbur Administration Wins Praise for its current Security Screening crackdown, new allegation of corruption

08/02/08
    

Addis Ababa (kilil5)—The federal government announced yesterday that it has established anti-corruption Bureaus or departments in six regional states while its in the process of establishing similar departments in the City of Addis Ababa and Harari State. The goal of the anti-corruption Bureaus is to strengthen the federal government’s efforts in fighting graft in all levels of the government, federal or regional administrations. Ethiopia has been praised by the IMF, World Bank and the Donor countries for its efforts fighting corruption and graft. The country has the least graft in East and Central African countries according to the World Bank report.

The federal government has been increasing its efforts fighting corruption and graft since the embrassing fiasco involving the central banks gold reserves.The Head of Ethics Department Director Hailu Berhe said that the Bureaus were established in Oromia, Amahara, Tigray, Beneshangul-Gumuz, Gambella and the South Ethiopia People's State. The Addis Ababa City Administration and Harari State are also expected to establish their own Commissions this year. However, what was surprising was the emission of the Somali regional state from the list when it’s a well-known fact that the Somali regional state has the highest corruption levels than any other regional state in Ethiopia. Every federal report for the past three years has given the Somali regional state a poor grade in its efforts fighting corruption and the existence of widespread corruption at all levels of the regional government. It is estimated that at least 40% of the region’s budget is wasted through corruption and mismanaged contracts. It therefore was very suprising when the Somali region's name was missing from the list.

Administration wins praise.

The current security effort of the Lugbur administration has worn praised from the federal government through the ministry of federal affairs. Senior government officials in the ministry of federal affairs say that the federal government is very supportive and appreciative of the efforts of the Somali regional State to weed out anti-peace elements and ONLF sympathizers from the region’s civil service and from the region. federal officals say that they are very supportive of the security steps so far undertaken by the region's leadership. They also believe that it will bring lasting security to the somali regional state.

The Somali regional State has undertaken a very ambitious plan to screen for and clean out ONLF sympathizers and “anti-peace elements” from the Somali regional State and from the region’s civil service. The administration has been busy meeting with all the region’s civil service employees, department by department, and town by town, in an effort to expose known sympathizers of the ONLF and in the process, has jailed hundreds of individuals, employees and regional leaders, accused of supporting or working for the “anti-peace elements”. The region’s minister for security Mr. Abdi Mohamed Iley and Mr. Da’ud Diriye have been singled for praise by the federal government for their efforts and leadership in the current screening out efforts. However, there are some concerns raised by the ministry of justice that not all individuals accused of being part of the anti-peace elements or jailed, are members or sympathizers of the anti-peace elements. Senior officials are worried and are convinced that there are too many cases of political witch-hunting and unsubstantiated accusation against innocent individuals and the ministry wants to intervene by doing its own investigation to verify case by case the allegation especially against the jailed individuals. Some Somali clans have complained already to the federal government through their federal representatives that some members of their clans are wrongfully accused or jailed. These clans have distanced themselves from the ONLF and from the anti-peace elements and have claimed that the current regional leaders, and the Lugbur administration, are purposely including other non-ogaden Somali clans, in an issue that is specific to the Ogaden clan, in an attempt to mislead the federal government and take the focus from the Ogaden Sub-clans that support the anti-peace elements or the ONLF.

Corruption Allegation involving the President.

There is a brewing allegation of corruption against the president according to autonomous sources from his administration. These sources allege that the president is involved in business adventures in Uganda and Tanzania and that millions of birr of State money has been diverted and continue to be diverted to these business adventures in the two East African Countries. These sources go on to say that the businesses are in the names of the president’s relatives and the money involved is substantial. The businesses are Hotels, Transportation, Real estate, and Import and Export related. One source had to say this “the president seems to have delegated his governing responsibilities to Da’ud and Abdi Iley. His only interest for sometime has been how much money he can safely misappropriate from the region’s coffins to his business interest outside the country.” According to this autonomous source, the president has a number of Hotels in Tanzania and Kampala Uganda and a number of homes in both countries and a thriving transportation business between Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Another anonymous sources from the department of revenue in the region adds weight to the allegation by telling me that there are millions of birr of regional money that is allegedly being appropriated for improving security and for capacity building but is never accounted for. This official says “there is too much generalization of how the money is spent in all departments” He adds “there is no accountability, no audit of how much, where, or how the money is spent…officials and senior leaders have too much power and are in a position to either instruct junior leaders to make up the numbers or invent how the money was spent and more often do it themselves by just generalizing how the money was spent”.

Yahya Yusuf
Addis Ababa, kilil5 Online.