The budget year, which is the last year of the Growth and Transformation Plan II (GTP II), will end in the coming week. In this five year plan the country targeted many achievements of economic and social improvements.
The tax collection of the economic spectrum is one of the areas that the government expected to get significant improvements. To attain the target several measures in the tax policy and administration were undertaken and are being implemented.
In the second GTP the government projected the tax collection to stand at half a trillion birr but the real performance is less than by half.
At the end year of GTP II, 2019/20, the government targeted to make the tax collection about 17 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).In the budget year that will be closed a day after tomorrow the government projected to amass close to 225 billion birr, while the slowdown of the economy because of COVID 19 is expected to further contract the performance.
The revised projection compared with the original GTP plan was more than half of the targeted plan to earn set five years ago. The government stated that at the end of the current GTP the tax collection will reach almost 500 billion birr.
However, Ahmed Shide, Minister of Finance, said that the tax collection for the 2019/20 will stand at 200 billion birr. Before the global pandemic the monthly tax collection performance was never seen as to be in a good path in the previous years.
From 2010 to 2015 the tax collection registered a growth rate of 29.4 percent on average. Meanwhile, it is far from the target set to be achieved for the final year of GTP I.
In the measurement to Tax/GDP ratio it reached at 12.7 percent. This percentage is the highest ever in the history of tax collection in view of Tax/GDP ratio.
Under the matrix of GTP I in the 2014/15 budget year, the government targeted to put the tax collection at about 15 percent of the GDP.
However the actual performance was 12.7 percent and that dropped to 12.5 percent in the next budget year and further to 10.7 percent in 2017/18 budget year. Even though the Tax/GDP ratio in the 2017/18 budget year shows a reduction, actual collection was 235 billion birr, that is four fold compared with the performance of the 2010/11 budget year.
According to Ahmed, who recently presented his budget speech to the parliament, in the coming budget year the government expected to earn 272 billion birr from tax.
The stated amount is 11 percent higher compared with this ending year projection but it is 36 percent higher from the expected real 200 billion birr collection.
At the same time he added that the 2020/21 tax revenue will be 6.6 percent of the real GDP, which is significantly lower than the years in the past.
Recently Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told the parliament that the country’s GDP has reached USD 100 billion. However the tax collection shows increment from year to year the ratio compared with the GDP growth could not grew proportionately.
Due to that partners like International Monetary Fund and the World Bank advised the government to boost its local revenue collection by imposing different instruments and expand the tax base in the aim to at least reach at the experience of other peer countries in sub Saharan Africa.
In the past few years several tax reforms like tax policy and tax administration has been in the works.
Tax Still a challenge
Gov’t will no more tolerate violence: PM Abiy
The government says the instability following the assassination of a prominent singer is a political theater that forces the government to take action than dialogue and diplomacy, which it preferred in the past.
Following the assassination of Hachalu Hundessa, the country mainly Oromia, Harari, Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa City Administrations saw fatal violence for three days starting from Tuesday, June 30.
The government stated that the assassination and the situation that followed it as a political drama that is orchestrated jointly by those who have been an enemy in the past but that now come together to take power.
Federal Police said that Hachalu’s killing aims to destabilize the country, as internal and external groups are after disturbing Ethiopia’s peace and security, working day and night to create conflicts among Ethiopians to realize their aim.
“The aim behind the killers that also targeted to kill higher officials and public figures is to create divide among Ethiopians, and realize their hidden agenda,” it said.
The officials said that the government will not tolerate such kind of political prostitution and will take measures than using diplomacy and dialogue that were preferred in the past aiming to nurture democratic dialogue. 
At a meeting held on Friday with security officials Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said that the government will continue on the democratization process, but at the same time take massive measures that start from the ground to halt such kind of assassinations and instability once and for all.
PM Abiy criticized some of the politicians and activists, who returned back to the country in relation with the political reform, on engaging conflict, murder and intriguing and cooperating with those who used their power to torture and murder before the reform. “We call them to vie on ideas and democratic election but they are engaged in another side,” he said.
The government will no more tolerate these kinds of activities and will take decisive measures to calm the country, according to the PM.
Oromia region and federal officials accused a military sect called ‘Shene’ detached from Oromo Liberation Front, Tigray People Liberation Front that ruled the country for 28 years, and some Oromia political elites in the opposition and inside the ruling party.
In his statement issued on Wednesday evening, Abiy described the political change and the situation in the country that the reforms have finally arrived for some and the reform have come after some of them.
“For those that have sought justice, unity, peace and democracy, the reforms have arrived while for those that has used the people for their own gains, the reforms have come after them,” he explained.
“The aim of those who assassinated Hachalu did not do so to kill him but through him to kill Ethiopia, our enemies have continuously aimed to destabilize and destroy the gains we are making. We have been working hard to thwart this and not all their plans have been successful,” he underlined in his written statement and at the meeting aired on state media on Friday night.
“The security apparatus, police, military, and all government entities are ready to protect our country and our people; we will pay the ultimate sacrifice to bear the fruits of the reforms,” the PM said.
He called citizens to cooperate closely with the government security apparatus.
Security force claimed the mission has taken several times to plan and targeted to destabilize the country and use the opportunity to implement their own agenda. It said the mission correlated ethnical and religious differences.
So far over 3,000 individuals who are believed to be involved in the violent protests were arrested. The protest took more than 100 life of civilians and security forces and destroy properties in different towns in Oromia, Harar town, Dire Dawa, and Addis Ababa.
1:10 birr per piece
Sheger Bakery announced that it will start supplying bread as of today Sunday July 5, with a price of 1.10 birr per bread to the public.
Abinet Gebremeskel, CEO of the project management office and general manager of MIDROC Construction Ethiopia, Jemal Ahmed MIDROC Investment Group CEO, and Head of Addis Ababa Trade and Industry Bureau announced the scheme in a press conference held at the Sheraton Addis on Saturday, July 3.
They stated that the bakery will provide bread to all the ten sub-cities and to cities surrounding Addis Ababa.
The Sheger bakery is built by MIDROC Ethiopia, which is owned by the Ethio Saudi billionaire Sheikh Mohammed Hussien Al Amoudi. Built with almost one billion birr, the state-of-the-art bakery has a capacity to make 1.6 million loaves of bread a day and 80,000 an hour.
The bakery, which uses automated machinery, will source flour from a plant that was built next to the bakery. Resting on 4.1 hectares, the bakery, and the flour processing plant is located in Akaki Quality Sub City. MIDROC imported the machinery for the bread and flour from Italy, while the transformers were shipped in from China.
The bakery has four silos each with a storage capacity of 30,000 quintals of wheat, 12 ovens, 13 mixers, and two cooling towers capable of cooling 140,000 loaves of bread a minute. It has 357 permanent employees and 23 food vans each capable of carrying 24,000 loaves of bread at once.
THINKING THE FUTURE
This column has always tried to be forthright and deliberate in all its commentaries about the major failings of the existing world order. Our considered opinion in regards to the system’s underlying principles and its day-to-day operations has always been based on verifiable experiential facts, without much bias from ideological convictions! Reiterating our core narrative, we enumerate the main culprits of the global system. The system’s extreme obsession with accumulation (at any cost) is one significant failure. The system’s effective utilization of socially constructed evils, along with the common identity politics, i.e., racism, ethnic-ism, sexism, etc., (to further the accumulation process) is another of its failing, specifically targeted towards the human animal. The above facilitated the extreme polarization between countries and amongst citizens. The exploitative and domineering attitude towards the natural world is another of the shortsightedness of the existing order!
These objective conditions, which are the root causes of many other problems, have not led to the emergence of a leadership that is willing to initiate a more pro-life and equitable trajectory at the global level. This is not very surprising, given the Deep State’s (DS) entrenchment in almost all aspects of collective life across the board. These old guards operating the global Matrix/beast, overtly and covertly, have managed to frustrate the emergence of an overall liberating ideology in many parts of the world! The global system’s planned trajectory, as laid by the selfish global ruling elites/DS, is becoming increasingly tenuous. For instance and quite obviously, the current global situation is in a state of serious flux demanding a speedy emergence of quality leadership to tackle the impending catastrophe. We believe all significant players of the system must be willing to come together, with a view to forge a more sustainable and harmonious world order. How can we foster a global leadership that is trustworthy, capable, forward looking and appreciative of the past, both its weakness and strength? The collective West doesn’t seem to have a leadership that is capable of seeing beyond the next election, to the detriment of its own sheeple’s (human mass). Being slavishly subservient to the unelected DS and its agenda will not solve the protracted problems of our times. When it comes to leadership, it seems it is the East and others that are in a better position!
Vladimir Putin has called upon the leaders of the significant countries of the world system to address the critical and pressing issues of our current world.
The Russian president has proposed a Summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to rethink the existing lopsided global order. He has publicly stated that the Russian Federation has deliberated on the major global issues and has plenty of proposals to present to the gathering! In all likelihood, Mr. Xi of China will second the proposals that are going to be presented by Putin. In fact, many of the third world countries that were always given the short end of the stick, so to speak, will most likely endorse Putin’s proposal. This is not to say that we are privy to the proposals. On the contrary, it is our deduction derived from assumptions based on the ascending ideology of multi-polarism! The unipolar order has had its days and it is time to move over. See the full text of Putin’s speech next column.
A new world order that takes into account the needs of the majority of the global population is what is demanded. The old tactic of polarizing the world to facilitate capital’s insatiable accumulation might not be palatable this time around. Plenty of desirable organic human values that have been neglected or even callously dismissed on the account of capital’s logic must be resuscitated and brought to life, once again. All the phony adjectives that are being employed by the status quo to conceal the continuation of the existing extractive, unsustainable and out rightly destructive projects of the system, like the ‘New Green Development’ should be exposed for what they really are; traps to serfdom! Here is the old objectivist in her incisive observation. We think Ayn Rand has worthy messages to both the right as well as the left.
“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, “Who is destroying the world?” You are.” Ayn Rand, ‘Atlas Shrugged’. Good Day!
