By: Eyob Tilahun Abera
Abiy’s plan for a new palace costs an eye-watering $10 billion. There is no justification for the waste of public funds on the nonsense project that caused forced evictions, damaged histories, and fueled skyrocketing inflation.
Since 2018, Abiy has spent money on nonsense projects and to fight against the public using their money collected under the name of tax. It seems Abiy and its people are living on different edges of the world.
People are struggling to survive with aid food due to the chaos initiated by his war and state-sponsored conflicts targeting Amharas in Oromia and Addis Ababa. Abiy is gambling on public funds with his nightmare project, which failed to consider many realities on the ground.
Secrets of project
Abiy’s plan to build a new imperial palace under a ‘Chaka (forest) Project’ on 503 hectares is the most grandiose so far. It would be greater than the area of coverage of Windsor (UK), Versailles (France), the White House (USA), the Kremlin (Russia), and the Forbidden City (China) combined. It is being built on the Yeka hills of Addis Ababa.
The project was officially secret until Abiy told Parliament last November: MPs asked him, ‘We heard in town that the Prime Minister is building a palace for the sum of $912 million’, and he briefed them that the actual cost as around $10 billion.
This is more than eight times more expensive than the presidential complex in Ankara, which cost $1.2 billion. Some people suggest Abiy’s project for the Palace could devour over $15 billion, which is almost Ethiopia’s annual budget ($14.6 billion). How can it be justified for a poor country like Ethiopia?
Abiy told the Parliament, “I did not come here to ask you for money to build it. He said the project’s funding will come from both domestic and international private donations. Abiy reckoned Emirates would lend much of it, but it was not yet proven.
Also, he hopped on business people who were well-connected with the government. It indicated Abiy’s absolute dictatorship by using parliament as a symbol. Ethiopia is under the one-man-ruling system of the authoritarian Abiy.
This is not the first time that Abiy has circumvented Parliament. Previously, billions of birr were funded for other big projects such as the newly built Science and Technology Museum and Friendship Park, but it is unclear how and where the money came from or how it was spent.
Damaging heritages and history
Addis Abeba’s ancient buildings have been systematically destroyed, and a portion of the city’s heritage has been eliminated due to the Chaka project. About 316 historic buildings were already excluded from protection by the heritage authority due to Abiy’s government’s plan to demolish them in a systematically engineered way through the coverage of development plans.
Systematically, Abiy changed Menelik II’s palace into a museum and zoo, creating parks and a library. Also, the palace of Emperor Haile Selassie I, now home to President Sahle-Work Zewde, is to be turned into an artifact and automobile museum. It disclosed his deep-rooted hatred for previous royals due to false-flagged narratives.
Building such a palace is unthinkable and unacceptable in poor African countries such as Ethiopia under dictator Abiy’s regime. It is not a common phenomenon even in super-wealthy countries.
It is clear to generalize, that unless there is a hidden ambition of Abiy to reshape previous imperial history to undermine or erase it, it is not justifiable to build such an expensive palace in a poor country by forcefully evicting thousands of people.
Demolition of houses and people
Recently, thousands of houses were demolished and land was cleared in Yeka City for the construction of the new palace. Only a few people have received generally inadequate compensation, but thousands have been rendered homeless. It is an extremely grave act by Abiy’s government, except for its power.
Also, Abiy’s regime has unlawfully demolished thousands of houses and forced people to be evicted under the newly formed Sheger City program in Addis Ababa. The government justifies demolishing illegal houses. The worst thing is that the houses were deliberately demolished during the rainy season, leaving them homeless.
Even if forced eviction of people is illegal, which is against international and human rights laws, Abiy’s forces arrest and even kill to silence dissent through violence.
Anyone who negatively comments on or stands against Abiy’s Chaka project is blackmailed and at any time sent to jail using unsubstantiated allegations.
For example, Eskinder Nega, the vocal leader of the Balderas opposition party, which has now taken up arms against Abiy, protested against these projects and the displacement of people. Also, Christian Tadele, a Member of Parliament raised transparency issues regarding Abiy’s Chaka project in parliament and criticized the regime’s failure to lead the country recently jailed in a military training camp in Awash, with inhuman treatment using false allegations.
Economic crisis
Abiy’s war in Tigry and surrounding regions cost hundreds of thousands of lives and devoured more than $28 billion in economic losses and more than $20 billion in external funds needed for reconstruction.
Inflation is skyrocketing at more than 37.2%, and the currency of the birr has depreciated by 120% on the parallel market since Abiy came to power. Procurement corruption is worsening. The country’s gold exports fell by 59% due to smuggling by government authorities.
The Mayor of Addis Ababa, Adanech Abebie, was reported to have paid $71 million for 200 Chinese-made city buses, but the final cost was three times that amount, a shameful theft of public money. Conscious people are at the boiling point of their anger due to the waste of public money for private benefit by corrupted authorities in power.
Incredibly, Ethiopia faced a shortage of foreign exchange reserves, hindering even the import of basic goods and agricultural supplies. As a result, the main crop plantation season of this year passed without the expected coverage due to a lack of fertilizers, even though the country’s economy is highly dependent on agriculture.
On top of that, the distribution of limited imported fertilizers was highly biased across the regions and also smuggled by authorities. Indeed, there is suspicion about Abiy’s intention to use hunger as a weapon by denying fertilizer to farmers.
More than 5.6 million people are internally displaced in Ethiopia, and the Amhara region is hostage to millions of internally displaced Amhara people due to the unlawful demolition of their houses in Addis Ababa by the government and state-sponsored attacks across the country. Unfortunately, Abiy displaced them again from their camp and killed them following his ongoing war in the Amhara region.
