July 24, 2026
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By Samuel Estefanous
I knew the 1.6 trillion birr government expense earmarked to be covered by internal revenue was trouble and shared my common sense protest immediately after the budget was endorsed into law. Here comes the first sign.
Joint Federal and Regional vehicle ownership taxation is in the pipeline. Many more are yet to come. The ugly part of generating internal revenue is effectively it levies quotas on regulatory bodies to collect fines and penalties. Customs, traffic, road transport and the notorious petty offence watchdogs all are required to generate revenue. Such income is tainted money and it is a veritable testament to the failure of the said organs of government. The more money the Offices collect the worse their performance is.
The joke in Addis goes like this. The petty offence (breach of regulation) watch dogs are like eagle scouts. They are bounty hunters looking for illegal construction and knock at any door when they hear a noise slightly sounding like a hammer hitting a nail head. In one of their patrol rounds deep into the City quarters, they followed the echo and caught a man repairing a broken chair and caught him red-handed-on the very act. He was told to freeze. ‘…but it is a broken old chair?’ the man protests. The officers wouldn’t have it. ‘…doesn’t matter… hammer and nail on hand is just what we need to prove fault…so what is it gonna be? Ticket or otherwise?’ The man picks the customary wise alternative. ‘Alright, alright…make it otherwise.’
The thing is collecting fines as a source of revenue is like law enforcement organs reporting high numbers of inmates locked up as a mark of good performance, it isn’t. That is why Addis is vying to win front seat status in Africa by keeping crime and number of criminals low.
I can understand the brutal heavy hand of the Brentwood sharks in all these. There isn’t much the government could do unless it got the raw gut to tell them ‘get lost, monsters, we know how many Nations you had ruined with your despicable all size fit all SAP vaccine to any economic ailments!’
Even if there isn’t much it could do to reverse the commitment to honor the dictates of the IMF and the WB to increase tax vs. GDP ratio, the government can cut expenses and spare itself the humiliation of budgeting on fines and penalties. I mean isn’t it despicable? Anybody who drives along the new road leading from Bole Airport to Goro via Ovid real estate knows the eagle-scouts with radar speedo-meter. I swear to God they take cover behind bushes lest drivers keep within the speed limit at their sight. That is how much they want to see the law-broken. Talk of prevention!
There are multiple organs of government with little purpose or with duplicity of roles. They are draining the government coffer doing practically nothing. Some are good for absolutely nothing. Sometimes I pity folks at the Ministry of Finance; I can imagine them savagely frowning at the budget earmarked for those offices while Ahmed Shide and friends have been trotting the globe to plead with creditors for adjustment to save a little hard currency.
You know what I think? I think we should dare the Auditor General to publish Performance Audits of the endless list of government bodies doing nearly nothing except paying salaries, costs of utilities and of course rent for a beautiful building in an upscale locality of the City.
We need sharp edged Elon Musk scissors to trim government expenditure by closing or downsizing public and government organs like the Institution of the Ombudsman. In the event you have heard the Chief Ombudswoman’s press briefing (reading presentation) you would understand the three mandates of the Office are safeguarding freedom of speech, providing administrative remedy and human rights protection. Incidentally, I have nothing against the abled professionals and Chiefs assigned to the role, I am just trying to reflect on the unnecessary duplicities of the role.
Even the proclamation founding the Institution betrays the concurrent jurisdiction shared with the Human Rights Commission and other organs of government. Imagine three or four budget funded institutions vying for jurisdiction to ‘safe guard freedom of expression’ in Ethiopia. If there is indeed the will to protect, one institution would have been one too many. Kinda reminds me of Albert Einstein’s alleged response to the signed Joint Declaration of 100 German Scientists against his theories of relativity. He is said to have observed ‘if I were indeed wrong one would have been more than enough.’
It is true unlike other government bodies the Institution and the Commission are expressly noted in the Constitution requiring the House of People’s Representative to found the ‘Organs of Democracy.’ But what have they achieved? National and International advocacy groups are doing by far better with relatively commendable credibility. Otherwise The National Dialogue Convention should propose revoking the Constitutional provision. I mean in the very first place the Office of the Ombudsman is the highest expression of a given system of government where rule of law is firmly established and the quest for justice is so refined that it crosses into the domain of moral authority. It is a Scandinavian thing to do.
As to administrative justice, I would rather they keep out of it. They end up compounding the bitterness of the applicants. I remember what the last Chief Ombudsman has said in the course of exiting the Office. He was utterly despondent and spoke with a sense of being at loss in the face of an accumulated sea of tears capable of drowning the staff, building and all. My standing advice to victims of administrative injustice is, don’t be fooled by the stats put out by the said Offices and don’t waste the precious time-lodge your complaints straight with judicial bodies where the Scale is matched by the Sword.
The reason I dwelled on the Institution is for no particular or specific reason. I just meant to drive my point home with a fitting example. I have reason to believe it has retained the service of a very talented and dedicated team. I have zero intention to cast aspersion on the officers or staff.
The other domain is of course the Agriculture sector where mission and vision overlaps significantly and duplicity of role is rampant. The number of independent Institutes, Research Centers, “transforming” Agencies, etc is quite alarming. Attaching capable and resourceful centers with institutes of higher learning would have done the trick effectively, just like the Ministry of Health has done.
All these Centers and Institutes do is filing report after report and they are almost on the verge of collapsing under the weight of the humongous pile of the paperworks. I would rather the government double downs on its effort to modernize the Extension program under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture.
To be continued…
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
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