Ethiopia: One of Fastest Growing Economies in Africa wants more

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Addis Ababa (HAN) April 15, 2014 . With only one year to go before the expiry of the Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP), Members of Parliament expressed concerns about the failure to trigger economic structural transformation when the Plan’s implementation performance for the year 2012/13 was presented to them on Thursday, April 10, 2014. Discussion was dominated by problems related to export performance and limited resource allocation to the private sector.

The concerns raised during the 23rd regular meeting by members of the 547-seat Parliament, most notably by Girma Seifu, the lone opposition member in the legislative chamber representing Medrek, were almost identical to the concerns that were raised during the discussion on the report with international aid agencies and ‘development partners’ exactly a week earlier at the UNECA Conference Hall. This follows from the report by Abraham Tekeste (PhD), state minister for Finance & Economic Development,

While commenting on the 134-page-long report girma claimed that the government had forgotten about the high case scenario that envisions registering more than 14pc of annual growth and has settled for the basic growth rate of 11pc.

“But the government is having a hard time achieving even that,” Girma told MPs.

Girma also said electricity issues had become a major setback for the growth of the manufacturing industry, with reports showing an increase of only 177Mw over the last three years.

“The construction of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) should not blind us from seeing the reality on the ground,” the MP said in his critique of the report.

The amount of energy being sold to Djibouti and Sudan, according to Girma, has also overshadowed the small increase in energy generation.

The performance of the public housing sector also prompted Girma to express his concerns. The government had planned to construct 30,000 houses by the end of the 2012/13 fiscal year, but actually managed to lay the cornerstones of 33,000 houses. This, according to the report, is an achievement of 109pc. Girma, however, questioned these findings, saying that only 30pc of the construction had actually been completed.

“More than 800,000 people have registered and are saving to get houses but the government was only able to start the construction of around 35,000 homes in the last three years,” the lone opposition MP told Fortune.

Less than 50pc performance in major sectors like energy, sugar, export, housing and railway has made Girma sceptical of the double-digit growth that the government claims to have achieved in the last three years.