Letters

The city of Harar

 

Dear editor,

So loved Harar! One of the most special and exotic places on earth! Thanks for your keen observations. I’ve been to many of the earth’s pulse points and this is a big huge one! The women’s colorful clothing alone can compete with Indian women and send you in a head spin with their beauty! Amazing friendly people and culture, living in the ancient and contemporary times all at once! Loved, my time there!

Eva Cherry

Dear editor,

I read your lead story on Ethiopia’s economy, (Can the host sustain its rank? May 2012), with great interest and enthusiasm. Your panelists have put together their best, accompanied by professionalism and decency to highlight the paradox of Ethiopia’s recent rank as the “worlds 3rd fastest growing economy.”

I am interested to add a few points to dispute the arguments put forth by the second panelist Mesfin Tekle.  Ato Mesfin seemed to have highlighted all the plausible reasons causing the hyper inflation in the country that has put an immeasurable stress particularly on the urban poor Ethiopians. But he seemed to have deliberately avoided mentioning the root cause of inflation in a country which, without dispute, is growing faster than any other economies in the continent. Such swift growth usually comes at a great cost of inflation not only in a country which depends heavily on import, hence causing imported inflation beyond the control of the nation’s both monetary and fiscal policy, but about which the writer has said little. On one hand Ethiopia is faced with a growing middles class that wants many things at its disposal and wants it now, on the other end heavy government spending to meet this fast growing need is disproportionally blamed as exacerbating the inflation. This is a double jeopardy.

As far as I know our Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has been telling the nation time and again that his government is working day and night to control inflation. But many of us seemed to have lost our patience. We want ongoing road construction projects both in cities and in rural Ethiopia to be completed in no time; many of us easily get frustrated that government financed housing projects are not fast completed enough; and so on and so forth. We have the right to be frustrated, angry and impatient; but we also have the obligation to give the government room to breathe so the ongoing development projects can be completed before it’s too late.

Groum Wondyirad

MA student at AAU

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Addis Ababa

 

A deal between Soliton Holding and Access Real Estate

Dear editor,

SOLITON HOLDING- does this company really exist? (Access Real Estate & Soliton Holding – A partnership worth two billion birr or maybe more May 2012). There is only one site – and it looks like it is recently made. No other website has a story on them except for Ethiopia related sites that reported about the merge.

I don’t think this company is legitimate. In addition on the website the CEO is a different person than the one reported by ARE. I bought a house from ARE – at least that was what I was promised – a year now and they have not yet started.

A concerned ARE customer

Addis Ababa

 

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