Change is in the air
By Samuel Estefanous
1-All Power to the Consumer
Urban Poverty isn’t just a topic sociologist and literary scholars indulge in. It isn’t a subject confined to the times of Chaplin, Dickens or Dostoevsky. It is a specter that haunts governments well in to the cyber age. The Urban Poor is an explosive political power base capable of inducing myriads of change as recently witnessed in places like Nairobi. It isn’t attached to land and unlike the propertied section of the society it has nothing to lose ‘except perhaps its chains’. It is your quintessential minimalist. A free spirit not made weak and vulnerable by the cares and want of the world. Unlike the rest it isn’t rendered spineless, coward and liable to compromise to protect its ownership. Thus, it is capable of wresting out power, claim it and declare ‘All Power to the Consumer’. In other words precipitate revolutions. I just don’t understand why the incumbent is flagrantly undermining it.
EPRDF feared it more than the combined force of opposition parties and movements. Like all rootless governments it tried to deal with the problem by extensively enforcing vagrancy laws aped from the West which enabled authorities ‘to arrest, prosecute and harass the homeless, the unemployed and the poor’. Incidentally, out of habit people say poverty isn’t a crime but practically and to a certain extent legally it is a crime. EPRDF realized it was playing with fire by enforcing vagrancy laws and tried to ‘engage’ the poor urban consumer instead of fighting it as its incorrigible nemesis. I believe its chief architect was Ato Arkebe and it did address the problem to a certain extent until all initiatives were rolled back recently. No wonder the percentage of Ethiopians living below the poverty line stands at a staggering 75%.
It is a good thing there is a nascent Consumer Protection society in the country, though these days it is limited to sponsoring a weekly column on the Reporter Amharic or its visibility is clouded by external factors. I am not sure, though. All I know is the public Authority established in 2013 to quell possible mass movement instigated by major consumer disaffection was dissolved in 2021. One can only understand the ‘importance’ accorded to the problem considering the fact that the authority was invested with police, prosecution and judicial power to protect the Consumer. True, the Authority was riddled with multiple problems but I would rather PP had tried to manage it efficiently instead of dissolving it altogether.
Change is in the air
I feel it in the deafening silence in the face of unspeakable human tragedies we witness on a daily basis. I see it in the eyes of the destitute who could no longer afford to feed their families. I see it in the level of the humungous and inexplicable public spending. I hear it loud and clear in the creepy voices of the cadres heralding the prosperity of the selected few at the expense of the multitude. I can sense it in the manner regular folks have come to dread holidays. I cannot help but notice it in the mindless extravaganza of the filthy rich, their associates in power and the ‘professional enablers’ living off the spill overs.
I can detect it in the reason hitherto proud heads of families have begun to trek long distances home-not only to save money but to arrive home after the kids and the landlords have retired to bed. Most important of all, I can see it in the degree to which the public is held in utter contempt by the New Class. It only needs an organized and capable opposition political party to mobilize, harness and lead it with wisdom to bring about a measure of social justice in the country.
The other day a good friend shared me Ato Mushe Semu’s post drawing parallel between the struggling traders being crushed under the weight of new taxes and unrelenting government exacting of all sorts of payments and the vulgar display of riches by the officials sporting 70,000 birr suits and 50,000 birr worth wig on basic salary under 30,000 birr per month.
I am positive he will add to the list, expenses encumbering the business community such as fines, kickbacks, hiking gas price, tolls and protection money owed both to the government and the highway robbers, not to mention loss of life encountered among long distance logistics operators on a regular basis. My only reservation is he should have reflected on the complicity of the business owners to perpetuate the system and sustain the criminal enterprise.
They have reason to. They suffer little as they transfer every single dime legally or illegally paid to the end line consumer. In other words the consumer is obliged to refund all expenses of the trader including bribes and kickbacks paid to corrupt officials. I have little sympathy for the business community as they stand to aid and abet the criminal networks.
Eventually it is the consumer-particularly those earning fixed salary-that shoulders the pain, the loss and every other consequence. That is why this class of the society is said to be a legitimate force capable of bringing governments to their knees and to hold them accountable for the misappropriation and dissipation of the meager Sovereign Wealth. Here, too, in no time a Ralph Nader is certain to distinguish himself from among the ranks of the consumers and spearhead the movement.
2-Sanitation and Corridor Development
The sorry state of sanitation in Addis has always put the Capital in utter disrepute. It tops any town in the country by the extent of open space defecation. In the far laying Regions, the combined efforts of donor agencies and the Health Extension programs have significantly brought down the statistics. But a city cannot be kept clean by getting rid of the poor and making it inhospitable to the consumer. When Addis is declared the most expensive city in Africa, in practical terms, it is pushing hundreds of thousands of residents every year below the poverty line.
In cities like Hawasa and Bahir Dara, dedicated and resourceful City Administration teams were able to keep the Cities speck less –literally- and still make them affordable and hospitable. If you find yourself in one of those cities, without realizing it you would find your pocket stuffed with pieces of papers when you arrive back at your room. One wouldn’t dare spoil the beauty of the towns by littering the roadsides with wastes. On the contrary these days most cities have become hostile, unaffordable and off limits to the end line consumer incapable of transferring the additional costs and expenses.
Thus, if Addis has been an open latrine it is solely on account of the weakness and unprofessionalism of the City Administration officials which have totally neglected the municipal services in the City (So much so that folks used to tell jokes at the irony of the sanitary engineering the former Prime Minister had specialized in against the backdrop of the pathetic waste management system of the Capital). Sanitation and waste management are regular municipal activities. A city trying to manage regular municipal services through ‘Corridor Development’ betrays a degree of unprofessionalism relative to managing City Administration. Bottom-line: as long as the overwhelming majority of the urban residents remain poor, homeless and unemployed the cities are liable to become dirty and open cesspools-with or without the Corridor Development. It is a higher standard of living that keeps cities clean. The less the number of the poor, the unemployed and the homeless is, the cleaner a city becomes.
God Bless
The writer can be reached at : estefanoussamuel@yahoo.com
Editor’s note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
__
Subscribe to support : https://borkena.com/2025/01/09/support-borkena-platform/
Join our Telegram Channel : t.me/borkena
Like borkena on Facebook
Add your business to Ethiopian Business Listing / Ethiopian Business Directory
Join the conversation. Follow us on X (Formerly Twitter) @zborkena to get the latest Ethiopian News updates regularly. Subscribe to YouTube channel To share information or for submission, send e-mail to info@borkena.com