Planning and Development Commission (PDC) reveals that COVID 19 forced it to redefine its Ten Year Perspective Development Plan that was expected to be tabled for consultation two months ago.
It is recalled that the government under PDC is conducting a strategic plan that will be implemented in the coming decade.
The plan targeted to attain crucial and tangible changes in the economy, social and political arena in the coming years.
Fitsum Assefa, Commissioner of PDC told Capital that COVID 19 has given a lesson to redefine the six strategic pillars stated in the Ten Year Perspective Development Plan.
“In every plan we are forced to redefine our targets. For instance we gave emphasis on technology and innovation, research and development, and develop resilient system,” she told Capital.
“We have been working to reforming data system to change it in real time and improve the frequency and relevance but COVID 19 showed us to work on it more,” she explained how the pandemic forced them to refocus on the strategy.
“We need to allocate appropriate investment on research and development, and real time data development to give fast decisions for any challenges and come up with concrete solution,” she added.
She also indicated that because of the outbreak investments on some sectors like tourism will be revised and reoriented.
“We are discussing on tourism, which is still a major focus areas under the plan, to reschedule investment on the sector and transfer to other areas until the outbreak effect calm down,” she added.
She said that some of the reforms not the plan are rescheduled; “now we are focused on saving life than going to the reform.”
The Ten Year Perspective Development Plan is different compared with the recent past similar plans and also looking in detail the failure of the previous development plans and continuing the high growth trajectory, according to the Commissioner.
For the last two years 12 different studies have been conducted as an input for the ten year development plan.
Sectors augmented by PDC have been engaged by themselves to come up with their own plan. Several discussions with stakeholders for every sector were undertaken from inception level for drafting the ten year development strategy.
High standard and independent consultants and experts were involved on commissioning the studies. “When we see the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) I and II most of them were developed in PDC, meanwhile sectors to some extent were involved. But on the latest case PDC set the macroeconomic framework, which is our mandate, and the rest under the bottom up approach; relevant government bodies conducted their plans under the PDC framework,” she said.
At the same time sectors are also synergized each other to keep the linkage of sector like agriculture and industry.
“Spatial dimension that will support to keep the balanced growth rate based on areas is also the other new point included under the current plan,” she added.
It is real we have been growing in the past years but there was a problem on the source of growth that was only focused on public investment, according to the commissioner.
She said that quality economic growth and fair distribution of growth are crucial that are understood by the public.
Enabling environment like sustainable development finance, improve competitiveness and productivity are also strategic areas to reach at the expected achievement.
Institutional transformation include improving public policies, cultural shift and mind set shift is also one of the pillars in the ten year plan.
Real involvement of the private sector in the economy should be ensured at this ten year plan and it is one of the strategic pillars to be achieved in the period.
Resilient economy against the climate change is also a strategic pillar of the plan.
Job creation is the major target for the government to be achieved in the coming decade. According to the plan at the end of the ten year plan the unemployment rate should be below nine percent. To meet the target every year at least 1.36 million new jobs should be created.
“At the stage we were going to kick off the public consultation the pandemic is reported in Ethiopia, meanwhile the new plan should be matured and will be introduced in the coming year since it is new year after the end of the five year plan, GTP II, that will end in July 7,” Fitsum said.
“COVID 19 does not only halt consultation but gave us a lesson to revisit the plan, and internally we raise issues like should we retouch the targets, do we need to look implementation instruments again, do we need to refocus on priorities, and redefine strategic pillars,” she said.
PDC conducted the short and long term impacts of COVID 19 that indicates the targeted growth rate will drop by 2.8 to 3.8 percentages from the original target of nine percent for the year.
This year growth will be between five to six percent. Recently the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecasted that the effect of global outbreak of COVID 19 will contract Ethiopia’s real GDP growth to 3.2 percent in 2020.
She said that initially the government’s projection for the year is different with IMF and the government expected the economy to grow by nine percent and IMF estimates 6.2 percent.
“Nobody understands our economy more than us. The IMF and other similar organizations and our indicators shall differ since they are considering the least developed countries under similar views but our assumption on productivity is considered as our own experience and achievements,” she explained.
“Some small boost on productivity has big impact. When they said Ethiopia will grown by 6.2 percent they considered that the country is under reform that means the public expenditure and government investment will drop. But the government expenditure will be diverted to the agriculture and private sector development that will boost the economy,” Fitsum said.
“Our production functions and the IMF school of thought on the area are also differing,” she added.
From 705,000 to 1.1 million jobs, mostly at the service sector, will be severely affected because of COVID 19.
According to the study of PDC, if the government does not intervene the impact of COVID in the economy will continue for the coming two and more years.
“But we witnessed that the government is intervening like injecting liquidity to the financial sector, sharing costs and allocating supplementary budget to mitigate the impact,” she said.
Commission to refocus priorities of 10 year development plan
Almost 40 companies interested to import basic commodities
Thirty-eight companies have expressed their interest for the invitation to supply food commodities by using their own foreign currency to the government.
In April, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MoTI) invited foreign companies to express their interest to supply basic commodities by using their own currency which will be paid back in two years.
In the expression of interest (EOI) document issued on April 8 the ministry expressed its interest to import 18.1 million quintal of wheat, 1.73 million quintal of rice, 104.3 million liters of edible oil, and 3.2 million quintal of sugar.
It has been recalled that the Ministry of Finance invited interested suppliers for basic commodities that can import using their own foreign currency and that will be paid within two years period. Experts said that MoTI’s expression of interest document is different because it states the volume that the government wants to import.
According to one of the foreign company representative who submitted the EOI document, in the previous call issued by Ministry of Finance the government called suppliers to show their capacity than indicating their demand.
Eshete Assefa, State Minister of Trade and Industry (MoTI), said that about 38 companies have shown interest meanwhile the exact number might be known when the document is opened.
He told Capital that currently a committee formed to evaluate the process is working on some additional standards before the opening of the EOI document.
“Additional standards are being observed for the sake of clarity on the evaluation process,” Eshete added.
He said that the document will be opened in the coming week.
Ethiopian Standard Agency, Ministry of Finance, MoTI, and Public Procurement and Property Disposal Service (PPPDS) are members of the committee that will evaluate the documents.
According to the plan overseas companies shall import and trade their products in the country by using their own foreign currency and the money will be settled in the future.
The scheme is targeting to give relief for the government from allocating the foreign currency for these products and stabilize the market.
Previously experts told Capital that the time is difficult to get basic commodities since the coronavirus pandemic challenge countries and their economy all over the world, while the number of companies who express interest indicated that the government target is achievable even though it will be determined after the evaluation of documents.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry EOI which is open to all overseas companies who meet the criteria indicated that the purpose is to solicit applications and short list multinational companies to supply the basic food commodities and/or industrial inputs to the Ethiopian market.
According to some of the criteria stated, the shortlisted companies will agree either to invest, which might be partially, or repatriate the cost incurred for importation of basic food commodities together with the margin above two years from the date of import.
Experts on the sector told Capital that they have doubts about the fruitfulness of the EOI. They argued that two years for repatriation is not feasible as a business.
Companies want to transact the money they invested more, while in the current interest of the government, the money will be idle for two years that could not be accepted by any manner and shall be affected by global price hike or inflation.
Previously State Minister of Finance Eyob Tekalegn, told Capital that there are companies coming to involve in the new scheme.
He ridiculed the argument of some experts that the government might not get companies to be involved on such kind of scheme.
“We have got several interested overseas companies to get on the business,” he told Capital few weeks back.
The government is getting on this new trend considering to tackle basic commodity supply shortage, fight the inflation and access fresh hard currency.
Currently, only Ethiopians and the diaspora are legally allowed to involve on the retail or wholesale business in the country.
Meanwhile in its way to be member of World Trade Organization and Continental Free Trade Agreement, Ethiopia is expected to ease such restrictions for foreign companies.
The government is the major importer of wheat at a cost of close to USD one billion every year. According to experts, the volume of wheat stated on the EOI shall cover the demand for about one and half year.
Edible oil is also mainly imported by the government even though there are over twenty companies that are allowed to import the product.
At the same time import of sugar is monopolized by the government so far. But the policy and regulation of sugar that is coming following the decision to privatize some sugar mills drafted the importation of the sweat by private operators who will buy the factories.
DISTORTING HISTORY
The modern world system is exhibiting symptoms that are heralding its final demise or bifurcation. Like previous exploitative regimes, the current empire, (i.e., the reigning hegemon and its subsidiaries) is engaged in a battle it might not win this time around, unless its members are willing to change their ways, comprehensively! What we learn from history is that all empires ultimately collapse, without exception! Overstretched military, debt infested manipulative economy, which fosters grand political, cultural, etc., corruption; lack of capable leadership in all sphere of existence, bureaucratic failure to decipher the foundational from the ephemeral, etc., etc. are all the usual telltale signs of a collapsing empire. Our concern today is to single out an element that prominently and repeatedly features within empire’s generalized decay. It involves the untenable project of rewriting history, usually with vacuous gusto!
Whether one likes it or not, one has to accept the simple fact that one cannot redo history! What one might attempt is misrepresent the past so that the intended distortion will serve the objective of the day. The steering core of the current empire, consisting of the Anglo countries (USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) or the ‘five eyes’ for short, are currently and vigorously attempting to misrepresent facts on so many different levels. To this end, they have set up a well coordinated cyber command manned by numerous human cretins as well as sophisticated algorithms. We will only cite one example. The open source web encyclopedia that goes by the name Wikipedia is now fully penetrated by these fact/truth manipulators or liars! At this point in time, not many entries on Wikipedia can be believed or taken for granted. Wikipedia might still be useful if one is looking for such innocuous things as the capital city of Germany; other than that, everything else must be taken with a grain of salt, to say the least. This once credible website, which was the result of many genuine individuals, is now taken over by the psychopathic deep state!
Another effort to rewrite history involves WWII. To be sure, this attempt at total misrepresentation goes back decades, to the last days of the war. The DS (deep state) has done a tremendous job in falsifying the history of WWII. Leveraging all its components, DS has managed to instill a distorted version of WWII amongst the global sheeple (human mass). In fact, our world has been victimized by the Hollywood-esque bamboozle that continuously tries to depict the Germans and the Russians as the ultimate evils, not only during the war days! Recall our heuristic definition of the deep state as the military-intelligence-industrial-banking-media-complex. In this definition, the media is intended to incorporate all the entertaining media; movies, spectator sports, etc., as they are part and parcel of the DS’s indoctrinating/brainwashing tools! One has to be quite clear about the ultimate objective of the DS. It is to control, with a view to dominate all global life. Such individuals are classified as psychopaths. Scientific data verifies that only about 5% of the world population is bona fide psychopaths. This gives some hope; on the other hand and unfortunately, these psychopaths tend to disproportionately dominate politics, banking/transnational corporations, the intelligence agencies, the military, etc. If global humanity wants a better world, these characters must be barred from all positions that entail collective societal responsibilities, directly/indirectly; otherwise civilized humanity might not survive their inborn wickedness!
Humanity must discard the multifaceted manipulation/distortion of global entrenched interests. In this regard, learning the true story of WWII or even WWI is of paramount importance. In WWII, amongst the Allies, it was the USSR that paid the most sacrifice, both in terms of lost lives as well as resources. The Chinese had also lost millions of people in the Asian war theatre. These are indisputable facts, however much the DS wants to distort history. The prevailing narrative of ‘evil Russia’ or ‘evil China’, as orchestrated by DS, must be tackled with facts and truths! On our part, we hail all those who made the ultimate sacrifice to defeat Nazism!
‘History knows no greater display of courage than that shown by the people of Soviet Russia.’ Henry L. Stimson, US Secretary of Defense.
‘We and our allies owe and acknowledge an everlasting debt of gratitude to the armies and people of the Soviet Union.’ Frank Knox, US Secretary of the Navy.
The gallantry and aggressive fighting spirit of the Russian soldiers command the American army’s admiration. George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, US Army.
‘I join … in admiration for the Soviet Union’s heroic and historic defense.’ Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief, US Fleet.
‘…the SCALE AND GRANDEUR of the (Russian) effort marks it as the GREATEST MILITARY ACHIEVEMENT IN ALL HISTORY.’ General Douglass MacArthur, US Commander in Chief, Southwest Pacific Area [emphases original].
“The world has never seen greater devotion, determination, and self-sacrifice than have been displayed by the Russian people and their armies…. With a nation which in saving itself is thereby helping to save all the world from the Nazi menace, this country of ours should always be glad to be a good neighbor and a sincere friend in the world of the future.” US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, July 1943.
Now contrast the above honest portrayal of history with the current simplistic jingoism, as twitted from the Whitehouse on the 75th anniversary of WWII. “On May 8, 1945, America and Great Britain had victory over the Nazis! America’s spirit will always win. In the end, that’s what happens.” President Trump. Good Day!
PPPDS changes bidding process for wheat purchase
Public Procurement and Property Disposal Service (PPPDS) introduced two envelops bidding process for the procurement of wheat that is highly appreciated by actors.
The Service that opened a financial bid document for 600,000 metric tons of wheat on Wednesday May 13, stated that based on the lessons learnt in previous bidding process it introduced new bidding process.
Tsewaye Muluneh, Director General of PPPDS said that the new scheme will accelerate the procurement process.
According to the new scheme PPPDS has opened the technical document few days before it opened the financial offer.
Based on the new scheme companies, who passed the technical evaluation, will participate in the financial process.
In the past both technical and financial documents will be opened at the same time, which was a challenge to conclude procurements on time.
A company representative that participated in several public procurements for several years highly appreciated the new approach introduced by PPPDS.
“This is very clean and transparent and the country is supposed to follow similar procurement process in the future,” he said.
He added that the scheme will clear corruption suspicions and is a perfect approach.
“Even the shipment approach is very clear that Ethiopian Shipping Logistics Services Enterprise (ESLSE) presented the port of loading price that will determine the winner of the bid,” he said.
The bid is undertaken under free on board (FOB) and the winner will be determined by the FOB price that ESLSE, the state owned shopping monopoly, offered.
The PPPDS bid document stated that the buyer (PPPDS) will ask the freight cost from each bidder’s loading port up to Djibouti from ESLSE and evaluate the price on C and F and award the least bid price. “However the contract shall be signed on FOB bases,” the document added.
The bid document for the procurement of 200,000 metric tons of milling wheat for instance indicated that bidders shall provide only one loading port for one lot and can provide only two different ports for the two lots on technical and financial documents.
Tsewaye said that this will make the state owned enterprise beneficiary.
Abeba Alemayehu, Procurement and Contract Administration Sector Deputy Director at PPPDS, told Capital that the previous one envelop system was not benefiting the government. For instance the price of wheat shall be low but the transport cost will be very high, which makes the total final price very escalated.
“The supplier offers FOB price and the government cover the transport cost but based on our study it costs the government; for instance the carriage cost for the wheat that comes from Black Sea and Argentina port does not have similar rates,” Abeba said.
She said that the new system will benefit the country.
On Wednesday the financial document was opened for two separate bids that resided for 200,000 metric tons and 400,000 metric tons of wheat.
On the first bidding process for the procurement of 200,000 metric tons on two lots seven companies; Ameropa AG, A Plus Importer, Besc Ltd, Okapi, Gemcorp Commodities Trading, Hakan Agro DMCC, and Hayton Inc have offered their financial proposal.
Gemcorp gives USD 204.97 per ton for the first lot that has 100,000 metric tons and USD 202.33 for second lot that has the balance the total 200,000 metric tons. Gemcorp’s offer for both lots is the least amount.
Other least prices for the first lot is USD 212.75 per ton Ameropa, USD 217 of Besc, USD 219 of A Plus, , and Okapi’s USD 219.97.
For the second lot Ameropa offered USD 209.75 a better price after Gemcorp.
For the bid to procure 400,000 metric tons of wheat five companies financial offer was opened at the hall of Ministry of Finance.
Hakan Agro DMCC, Agrocorp, A Plus Importer, Marthina Mertens Sampl and Olam International are the companies that participated in the financial offer.
Agrocorp, A Plus Importer and Marthina Mertens offered for all lots that have four with 100,000 metric tons each.
Marthina has offered USD 219.15, USD 219.35, USD 219.49 and USD 219.99 per ton from lot one to four respectively. From one to four lots Agrocorp offer has also offered USD 227.5, USD 229, USD 230.5, and USD 232, while A Plus offered USD 219, USD 221, USD 223, and USD 225 per ton respectively.
Olam International offered USD 212.7 for first lot and Hakan that participated on third lot has offered USD 229.17.
The Singapore based company Olam International’s offer is very low meanwhile it offered for a single lot (lot 1).
The German company, Marthina Mertens offer for all lots, has offered better price except first lot while the company is not known on such business not only for Ethiopia but in the world, according to experts.
The procurement for 400,000 metric tons of milling wheat has been undertaken in the past but due to claims from bidders it has been taken several periods to close the case. Following the board, who looks the claims, annulled the bid the Service has been refloated the bid late February.
Tsewaye said that the final result will be disclosed by next week.
The milling wheat is procured for Ethiopian Trading Businesses Corporation and Ethiopia National Disaster Risk Management Commission that will secure 200,000 and 400,000 metric tons respectively.
In the budget year PPPDS targeted to buy 800,000 metric tons of milling wheat and 200,000 MT has already been awarded to A Plus.
