Ethiopia Opposition Slates U.S. Help
for Ruling Party Company
25 November, 2009 | By Jason McLure
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ethiopia’s main opposition party criticized a U.S. aid program for
helping a textile plant with ties to the country’s ruling party win a
multimillion dollar contract from an American company.
The program, known as the AGOA Plus project, is designed to
help link African manufacturers to American buyers in order to take
advantage of preferential tariff treatment under the African Growth
and Opportunity Act. The so-called AGOA program, started by the
U.S. government in 2000, allows about 6,500 products from Africa
to enter the U.S. free of duties or quotas.
was founded and is controlled by members of Ethiopia’s ruling party.
“The American government is using public money to support a
dictatorial government,” Beyene Petros, an opposition lawmaker
from the Forum for Democratic Dialogue, said in a phone interview
on Nov. 23. “This is simply crazy. I don’t know who is advising
them or why they are doing this.”
As part of the deal, Almeda will produce restaurant uniforms and
other garments for Atlas, which specializes in importing textiles to
the U.S. from African countries eligible under AGOA. Ethiopian
textile exports under AGOA were $18 million in 2008, lagging
countries such as Lesotho, which exported $340 million in goods
under the trade pact.
Economic Development
Michael Gonzales, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia,
said the goal of the project was to foster economic development,
not help political parties. In matching U.S. buyers with Ethiopian
manufacturers, it didn’t provide American companies with
information about the ownership of Ethiopian factories, Gonzales
said in a phone interview yesterday.
The U.S. works with the Ethiopian Textile and Garment
Manufacturers Association, Gonzales said.
“Almeda is a member of this association,” he said. “Almeda is one
of relatively few Ethiopian factories with the capacity to fill an order
of this volume.”
Razvan Ionele, general manager of Almeda, said in an e- mailed
response to questions that the deal would consolidate the image that
Ethiopia is a possible sourcing location for producing textiles. He
declined to comment on the company’s ties to Ethiopia’s ruling
party.
James Langford, chairman of Atlas Manufacturing, declined to
comment, when contacted via e-mail yesterday.
Elections
Foreign aid to Ethiopia has emerged as an issue ahead of national
elections scheduled for May, which the opposition has warned may
not be free and fair. Earlier this month, the Forum for Democratic
Dialogue said its members had been denied access to a food aid
program funded by the U.S., the U.K. and the World Bank as well
as Ethiopian government jobs funded by foreign donors. The
government has denied the allegations, and the American and British
governments have said they are probing the claims.
Almeda, located in the northern city of Adwa, the birthplace of
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, is owned by the
Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray, or Effort, one of
Ethiopia’s largest business groups. It comprises more than a dozen
companies established by former guerrillas from Meles’s Tigray
Peoples Liberation Front that seized power from the Communist
Derg government in 1991.
Effort’s CEO, Abadi Zemu, is a senior official in the TPLF, which
has ruled Ethiopia for the past 18-years in an alliance of pro-Meles
parties known as the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic
Front. Effort’s deputy chief executive, Azeb Mesfin, is Meles’s wife.
Opaque
Last year, the World Bank’s Ethiopia country director said the
finances of Ethiopia’s endowment businesses were opaque and a
bank report this year called on policy makers to ensure that
endowment firms are managed at arms-length to the government.
Effort is using the profit from Almeda and its other businesses for
economic development and projects like schools and housing in
Ethiopia’s ethnic Tigray region and not for political purposes, said
Abadi.
“The initial money of course was from the TPLF,” he said in phone
interview yesterday from the northern city of Mekelle. “But since
then the ruling party cannot make any claim on its resources.”
Addis Alemayehu, the director of the AGOA Plus project, said his
organization had been working on the deal for 18 months and said
its intent was to create jobs.
“For me, you go to the factory and you look at the 2,000 to 3,000
Ethiopians working, that’s all I care about,” he said in a phone
interview on Nov. 23 in Addis Ababa. “There’s always going to be
a negative side when it comes to deals like this.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis
Ababa via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
Courtesy
for Ruling Party Company
25 November, 2009 | By Jason McLure
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ethiopia’s main opposition party criticized a U.S. aid program for
helping a textile plant with ties to the country’s ruling party win a
multimillion dollar contract from an American company.
The program, known as the AGOA Plus project, is designed to
help link African manufacturers to American buyers in order to take
advantage of preferential tariff treatment under the African Growth
and Opportunity Act. The so-called AGOA program, started by the
U.S. government in 2000, allows about 6,500 products from Africa
to enter the U.S. free of duties or quotas.
- On Nov. 19, the U.
S. Agency for
International
Development-
funded AGOA Plus
said it brokered a
contract worth as
much as $30 million
annually between
Jackson, Mississippi-
based Atlas
Manufacturing Group
was founded and is controlled by members of Ethiopia’s ruling party.
“The American government is using public money to support a
dictatorial government,” Beyene Petros, an opposition lawmaker
from the Forum for Democratic Dialogue, said in a phone interview
on Nov. 23. “This is simply crazy. I don’t know who is advising
them or why they are doing this.”
As part of the deal, Almeda will produce restaurant uniforms and
other garments for Atlas, which specializes in importing textiles to
the U.S. from African countries eligible under AGOA. Ethiopian
textile exports under AGOA were $18 million in 2008, lagging
countries such as Lesotho, which exported $340 million in goods
under the trade pact.
Economic Development
Michael Gonzales, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia,
said the goal of the project was to foster economic development,
not help political parties. In matching U.S. buyers with Ethiopian
manufacturers, it didn’t provide American companies with
information about the ownership of Ethiopian factories, Gonzales
said in a phone interview yesterday.
The U.S. works with the Ethiopian Textile and Garment
Manufacturers Association, Gonzales said.
“Almeda is a member of this association,” he said. “Almeda is one
of relatively few Ethiopian factories with the capacity to fill an order
of this volume.”
Razvan Ionele, general manager of Almeda, said in an e- mailed
response to questions that the deal would consolidate the image that
Ethiopia is a possible sourcing location for producing textiles. He
declined to comment on the company’s ties to Ethiopia’s ruling
party.
James Langford, chairman of Atlas Manufacturing, declined to
comment, when contacted via e-mail yesterday.
Elections
Foreign aid to Ethiopia has emerged as an issue ahead of national
elections scheduled for May, which the opposition has warned may
not be free and fair. Earlier this month, the Forum for Democratic
Dialogue said its members had been denied access to a food aid
program funded by the U.S., the U.K. and the World Bank as well
as Ethiopian government jobs funded by foreign donors. The
government has denied the allegations, and the American and British
governments have said they are probing the claims.
Almeda, located in the northern city of Adwa, the birthplace of
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, is owned by the
Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray, or Effort, one of
Ethiopia’s largest business groups. It comprises more than a dozen
companies established by former guerrillas from Meles’s Tigray
Peoples Liberation Front that seized power from the Communist
Derg government in 1991.
Effort’s CEO, Abadi Zemu, is a senior official in the TPLF, which
has ruled Ethiopia for the past 18-years in an alliance of pro-Meles
parties known as the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic
Front. Effort’s deputy chief executive, Azeb Mesfin, is Meles’s wife.
Opaque
Last year, the World Bank’s Ethiopia country director said the
finances of Ethiopia’s endowment businesses were opaque and a
bank report this year called on policy makers to ensure that
endowment firms are managed at arms-length to the government.
Effort is using the profit from Almeda and its other businesses for
economic development and projects like schools and housing in
Ethiopia’s ethnic Tigray region and not for political purposes, said
Abadi.
“The initial money of course was from the TPLF,” he said in phone
interview yesterday from the northern city of Mekelle. “But since
then the ruling party cannot make any claim on its resources.”
Addis Alemayehu, the director of the AGOA Plus project, said his
organization had been working on the deal for 18 months and said
its intent was to create jobs.
“For me, you go to the factory and you look at the 2,000 to 3,000
Ethiopians working, that’s all I care about,” he said in a phone
interview on Nov. 23 in Addis Ababa. “There’s always going to be
a negative side when it comes to deals like this.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis
Ababa via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
Courtesy
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