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.
This just shows how much the writer of this article is biased and full of hatred. PM Abiy is the one we hope take this enpoverished country to the next level. Love ❤️ and support to our king Abiy that is not biased and free of hatred.
U r right that the writer is a bit biased in the way he explained the facts. One can tell from the wording that he is full of hatred I do agree with u in this regard.
But, how do u justify the importance of such a huge and costly palace 4 a country like Ethiopia where infilation is skyrocketing and livelihoods of the general population is under critical condition? Don’t u c inability of prioritizing the country’s problems and act accordingly?
Martin and his team are daydreamers almost every single day and night. That is so great that they never ciritized that PM Abiy is used the money for himself and his family; but he invested for better Ethiopians. This kind of negative attitude from Martin and his followers on PM is unacceptable for True Ethiopians. The PM is not corrupted person, he even gives his wealth to many Ethiopians, As citizens, I can witness that no leaders have done in the history of Ethiopia to give their money to poor Ethiopians, but the PM did.
By reflecting your false,
unacceptable and fubricated news I would like to say doesn’t make sense. Meaning, you lost the game by fabricating false information since TPLF eara .
Let me ask you one question, do you have a capacity to check your reputation as a journalist? I don”t think.You never succeeded during the time of TPLF and the federal government conflicts in Tigray. You are fabricating and spreading false information between citizens of Ethiopia have becoming history. Belive me I am an independent Ethiopian, never and ever I am not blindly support anyone, but by very good reasons. Do not be baised!
How is the spending billions of dollars going to help the country and the people?! Is it going to improve the country’s economy? Exposing the PM’s wrong doing is hatred? Are you in your right mind to make such comments and do you even have faculties to analyse, reason and conclude the madness and ridiculous flout of this so called PM? Are you or maybe a family member involved in this project hence your absolutely doltish comment above?
while the extravagant cost of the fund for the palace is unnecessary, and a great deal of that fund could be used towards solving serious issues in society, the reporter is a well known TPLF supporter, he can’t be trusted cos he has been writing adamantly turning a blind eye for the atrocities of TPLF during the recent war in the north of the country.
Why now?
“strategy to undermine royal history and waste public funds” you are not concerning about economy crisis.
This
True leaders strive to overcome crisis and become creative in difficulty.
True leadership passion is the discovery of a believe, a reason, an idea, a conviction or a cause—not just to live for, but to die for—that focuses on benefiting mankind as a whole.
Thank You My PM Dr Abiy Ahmed Ali Dhera for true leadership ❤❤❤❤
Long live King Abey! What is your next complaint? Why did Abiy build the GERD? If we were thinking clearly, projects like libraries and science museums would have been more beneficial. The current chaos reflects a lack of knowledge in our society. If the emperors you hold dear had invested in more libraries over the last 100 years, we might not be facing these problems.
Hang on: wasn’t this a project initiated by considered by Haile Selassie and given the go-ahead by Meles Zenawi?
pm Abiy strategy to build luxury palace, parks, musiums, planting trees… may be fine, but we are struggling day to day with alarming inflation on basic food items, rent, fuel and transportation costs beside corruption, crime and social crisis
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I have read your articles regarding TDF-NDF war. Those seems a bit neutral and fact based reports. But these article seems biased and even some of wordings like “poor country” are unnecessarily repeated. At least your critical writing should have risen balanced views recognizing some positives out there. All negatives? What an article is this?!
its quite unfortunate that a journalist might turn a blind eye in not Balancing his narrative about this ongoing farcade.
however you have to call a spade a spade . PM Abiy projects has not given hope or a clear roadmap towards the impended economy injuries spustained in the entire country after the civil war.
what would be appropriate is a recovery project that will uplift, livelihood of the mostly effected victims of the war, As we have seen in recent times their is a heavy dependence on international Aids from outside the country.
interms of inadequate provisions for healthcare Support utensils such as :Sanitary supplies shelters, food , clean water , explicitly subsidize life Saving medical supplies like Antibiotics , Vaccines , immunizations kits, Antiviral viral medications, that is needed by the displaced most vulnerable victims who are mostly women children and elderly ones.
it would have been envisage that the PM Would have provided a reconciliation program that will pave rooms for humanitarian assistance and epic reconstruction basic amenities such as Hospital, schools, infrastructure , house public transportation and other important public facilities affected during the civil war. Not embarking on a so called projects that doesn’t have impact on the masses affected by the most vulnerable in such times, of Farmine and Economic crisis.
Good work friend, i will be reading many of ur articles to learn from ur writing skills. Don’t believe all these comments hating on ur piece, they’re not the average ethiopians. Infact they’re just public workers paid to write comments defending the dictator in Addis. They are blind to his injustices. However almost all of Northern ethiopia resents this looter, including us Addis Ababans. Be the voice for the ever growing yet suppressed majority.
How do you spend $10B on a palace!? How is it even possible!?
Do you build a perfect replica of the Nordschleife in the backyard ?
I know the fact would be unclear, but the intentions are more pure than one can imagine. One day everyone will awake to a new and fulfilling taste of the good truth.
I believe it is not warterd to build a palace at this time and when there are many needs exist! However, to report that it will cost $10 billion or even $1 billon is exactly what Trump has been talking about fake news. I will add fake politicians! If the white house is built today will cost around $800 milion ! if they build buckingham palace in London now, it might coast $1.6 billion ! that is considering the land/real estate! The nation’s yearly budget is less than $13 billion! does this report make sense?
is this guy crazy? If they build the white house and buckingham palace today it will coast less than $3 billion! That is including the land purchase! $ 10 billion Abye going to spend on a palace when the national gdp is less than $13 billion? What a wanker!