Has the bank gone rogue?
and neocolonialism, again
Hi there,
I’m Maya Misikir, a freelance reporter based in Addis Abeba and you’re reading Sifter - a newsletter where I curate the week’s top five stories.
March has been an intense month, but it has had highlights - one of which was a conversation I had with Lilly Bekele-Piper, the host of Selam & Hello Podcast. She invited me to talk about my journey starting this newsletter, what I look out for in news coverage, and some personal questions, like how I stay hopeful (have you read the news lately?).
You can check out the episode and her podcast, which features, ‘stories of joy and justice from Africa and the diaspora,’ here.
Also included in this week’s edition is an apology to readers expecting to read highlights from the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission’s report on the national inquiry into persons deprived of liberty. There were just not enough hours in the week to go over the 113-page report. I will be circling back to this.
Now, to the news.
Banking: the silence is deafening
This is the third-part update on what is happening over at the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia. The Bank, the country’s largest financial institution, is state-owned, and the past couple of weeks have been a stark reminder of that fact.
To go over the basics again, the Bank had a system ‘glitch’ in early March as it tried to update software. This caused an overload in its systems and resulted in a window where people were able to withdraw and transfer money they didn’t have in their accounts. In the first update, which I wrote here, a report by Addis Fortune had initially said the amount of money lost during that window was around 2.4 billion Birr (citing ‘industry sources’). The Bank said last week this figure is closer to 800 million Birr.
The Bank has since nicely asked and threatened (and possibly broken a series of laws?) to get this money back. Last week’s updates, on the Bank’s many desperate attempts to get its money back (including freezing customer accounts) can be found, here.
Most of the people who made these unauthorized transfers were university students and the Bank said it would name and shame the offenders if they didn’t return the money. It made good on this promise and released the names and account details of over 500 people who it says have not returned the stolen money (data privacy laws be damned).
But wait, that’s not all.
An update by the Telegram news channel, TIKVAH-ETHIOPIA, says that the Bank had reached out to the parents of these university students and managed to get some of the money back.
My repeated attempts to reach legal advisors at the National Bank of Ethiopia, the regulatory body, were not very successful (a nice way of saying the advisor hung up on me mid-question). But an official there has informed me that a committee is investigating the matter.
The full story on recent steps taken by the Bank on Addis Standard, in English, here, and the update from TIKVAH-ETHIOPIA, in Amharic, here.
Neocolonialism: British Museum hoarding looted artifacts
The British Museum is infamous for proudly displaying stolen artifacts from around the world and refusing to give them back. The last time I wrote a similar update was in September last year when there were calls to return Ethiopian Prince Alemayehu's body. The Museum had explained at the time, that this ‘would disturb the remains of others buried in the catacombs of St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle’.
The Museum is in the spotlight again, this time for withholding details about a collection of Ethiopian tablets (tabots).
Here’s an excerpt from the story:
“The 11 wood and stone tabots, which the museum acknowledges were looted by British soldiers after the Battle of Maqdala in 1868, have never been on public display and are considered to be so sacred that even the institution’s own curators and trustees are forbidden from examining them.”
Though there are limited instances when the Museum can return objects (according to the British Museum Act 1963, that is), a non-profit cited in the story says these tablets fulfill the circumstances for a lawful return.
The Museum did not comment on the story and says it has, in the past, expressed interest to, ‘lend the tabots to an Ethiopian Orthodox church in the UK’.
The full story in The Guardian here.
Peace deal: updates from Tigray
In mid-February of this year, fighting broke out between Tigrayan and Amhara forces in the contested areas between the two regions in Ethiopia. The fighting took place in the town of Raya, and was the first instance of its kind in the area since the peace deal that ended the war in Tigray was signed in November 2020. Ethiopian National Defense Forces intervened and no causalities were reported. You can read more about that here.
Last week, another round of fighting broke out in Raya, and a critical road linking the town of Alamata to Mekelle, Tigray’s regional capital, was blocked following this latest incident.
A plan to repatriate displaced people from these contested areas (now under Amhara forces) back to their homes with the escort of the Defense Forces was announced earlier this month by the federal government. This follows the announcement from last year to settle the issue of the contested areas through a referendum.
Meanwhile, both regions continue to face serious food insecurity and a recent report by The New Humanitarian, says that social protection programs, like the Productive Safety Net Programme, are being cut down, at a time when the community needs it the most.
Here’s an excerpt:
“…rising prices and cutbacks from some international donors have caused a serious financing gap of about $195 million over the next two years, according to Sintayehu Demissie, the head of the food security coordination office in Ethiopia’s ministry of agriculture, which manages the programme.
Most beneficiaries will receive assistance for only four months this year, instead of the usual six, effectively slashing transfers by a third. Support to the most vulnerable has been cut from 12 months to 10.”
The full story on the fighting on Addis Standard, here, and the impact of cut-downs of the social protection program on The New Humanitarian, here.
Security: another attack in Gambella
There was an attack on a bus in Ethiopia’s Gambella Region last week, which resulted in the death of three people, including the bus driver, a woman, and a child, according to a story by Addis Standard.
The attackers shot at the bus, which had been delayed and had lagged behind a convoy traveling together.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Multiple sources disclosed to Addis Standard that the attack took place between Abol district and Tharpam Refugee Camp at approximately 10 a.m. while the bus was in transit…
“The attackers aimed at all the buses, yet the targeted bus’s delayed departure made it particularly vulnerable to the assault,” elucidated the source.”
For those looking to understand the security situation in Gambella and the effects of that on the human rights situation in the region, I wrote an update on an assessment done by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission a couple of weeks ago, here.
The full story on last week’s attack on Addis Standard here.
Displacement: the highest bidder gets Piassa
I wrote an update in early March when residents of Addis Abeba’s Piassa area were given as few as three days to pack their homes and make way for new development projects.
It’s been about a month since then, and following some major demolition works, the city administration is getting together ‘bid documents’ to sell off the newly cleared plots. But the city administration officials reassure readers that the lands auctioned off will not only be in Piassa, according to a story by The Reporter.
Here’s an excerpt on the other parts of town included in this ‘demolition and redevelopment’:
With the newly inaugurated Adwa Museum as its center, the “corridor development” project snakes from there to Arat Kilo and then on to Kebena and Megenagna. Another section of the project starts at Bole International Airport to Arat Kilo via Meskel Square, while the third route stretches from Bole to Ayat through Megenagna.
The story adds that more than 11,000 people have been relocated from Piassa alone and that business owners in the area were given an option between keeping and redeveloping their properties or renting out spaces from the new sites.
Here’s an excerpt of what business owners said about that option:
“We were told we could choose to develop the area by ourselves, but the capital requirements and other perquisites are very unrealistic,” he told The Reporter, speaking anonymously. “Only a couple of businesses from the old Arada building area got into the Museum, but the rental fees are crazy.”
The full story on The Reporter, here.
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