Politically Motivated Report of the IMF

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By Staff Writer

Currently most of the key international institutions including the United Nations and its associated agencies are largely dominated by few world powers.  Though the institutions are expected to function independently and impartially to all nations throughout the world, they are becoming instruments of few powerful nations to pressurizing others for their interests. For instance, the powerful nations would use international financial institutions like the World Bank and IMF to accomplish their political and economic interest by putting preconditions in providing finance to other weak nations.

The international monetary fund recently issued five years economic forecast for countries indicating it was unable to issue a forecast for Ethiopia “due to unexpected economic uncertainties” which it failed to elaborate but estimated that Ethiopia would register a 2% GDP for the current fiscal year.

This indeed is a contradiction in terms because if there are “uncertainties” in the nature of the economic growth of the country it could not issue any level of estimates that would hold water. The same report indicates that Eretria would register a 4.8% economic growth over the next five years while the estimate for Djibouti is 5%, Somalia 3.9% and South Sudan 6.5% respectively.

The forecast for Ethiopia was deliberately restricted to a single year in an attempt by the IMF to predict a bleak economic growth for Ethiopia shrewdly relating it to the law enforcement measures on the terrorist TPLF currently underway.  

Even at IMF standards and in terms of viable economic reasons for the down turn in the economy of the country, it would be erroneous to relate it to the war provoked on Ethiopia by terrorist TPLF. The figure for Ethiopia’s GDP for the current year seems to be marred by political considerations and an attempt to disfigure Ethiopia’s future economic development as a total failure with no meaningful analysis.

Over the previous decade, Ethiopia has been registering a two digit economic growth and even in the advent of COVID-19, outbreak of locust and several natural calamities from a year ago the nation has managed to register 6% economic growth and there are no basic economic indicators that could show the country’s GDP will drop by 4%.

Besides, since last year, Ethiopia has embarked on the implementation of a homegrown economic development plan which is on the right track. The major objective of the national plan is not restricted to marked reduction of poverty but also to reduce the recurrent economic dependence on other countries in the form of donations and loans which has put the country as well as other African countries in a vicious circle of poverty.

The IMF prediction on Ethiopia failed to refer to what the country has planned to accomplish over the next ten years. In her inaugural address to the joint session of the House of Peoples’ Representatives and House of Federation President Sahelework Zewede outlined major socio-economic measures to be taken in the current fiscal year.

She said “Major focus will be made in reducing the escalating inflation by reducing the gaps between supply and demand, transforming the agriculture sector from rain fed agriculture, readjusting the irregularities in the trade sector, fiscal and monetary measures will be taken to control the financial sector.  .. in the current fiscal year government revenue will increase to 600.9 billion birr while revenue from foreign trade is projected at 5.2 billion dollar. In the agriculture sector 592 million qts of agricultural products will be harvested.”

The projection made by IMF compared the situation in Ethiopia with that of Afghanistan whose Taliban government is still at the formative stage and with Libya whose national economy is already in shatters due to the civil war that was going on in the country over the last several years and with the situation in Syria.

The indicators used by IMF in projecting the economic performance of countries assumed that the Ethiopian economy will be totally crashed due to the ongoing battle between the ENDF and terrorist TPLF forces. This is apparently a deliberate political and not economic miscalculations that IMF has made in trying to provide a diplomatic support for terrorist TPLF by erroneously trying to predict a bleak situation in the national economy of the country.

The prediction on Ethiopia is meant take negative political profiling on the economic growth of the country under difficult situation solely created by the terrorist TPLF.

This is a clear indication that this institution is using its mandate to fulfill the political interests of others by boldly comparing Ethiopia with failed states like the ones mentioned above by totally denying the reality in Ethiopia which has just formed new government with democratically held elections.

On its revised report on March 18,2021, the World Bank stated that “Ethiopia’s economy experienced strong, broad-based growth averaging 9.4% a year from 2010/11 to 2019/20, Ethiopia’s real gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed down to 6.1% in 2019/20 due to COVID-19 (cornavirus )pandemic. Industry, mainly construction, and services accounted for most of the growth. Agriculture was not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its contribution to growth slightly improved in 2019/20 compared to the previous year. Private consumption and public investment explain demand-side growth, the latter assuming an increasingly important role.”

Despite the war waged on Ethiopia over the last 11 months, reports indicate that the country is on the right track of development contrary to the conclusions made by the IMF. The agriculture sector in the country is thriving with promising bumper harvests from huge wheat farms and clustered farmers plots across the country. According to the National Bank of Ethiopia, Ethiopia’s FDI has grown by 725.10 million USD in the first quarter of 2021 and is expected to grow further in the rest of the year.

Therefore, Ethiopia will disprove the predictions of IMF and move forward in engaging in a better economic development path over the rest of 2021 and 2022.  

The report issued by the IMF doesn’t seem genuinely economic but it is politically motivated to tarnish the image of Ethiopia just like the ongoing negative campaigns being orchestrated by some members of the western nations on the country.  

Ethiopian News Agency
2023