Paradox of Ethiopia’s effort to Brain gain

By David Wala

October 9, 2006 — Many Africa’s top politicians are often talking about the importance of brain gain at various forums and conferences. They were even champions of the same idea in Africa Union and even some Global forums, about the important of brain gain to the development of their respective countries. Ethiopia is among one of them with so much words but very few actions. Moreover, the governments are just doing the opposite of this noble cause of the many if not all countries in Africa. I will try to discuss this issue from two perspectives in the Ethiopia context.

HUMAN RIGHT ISSUES

Ethiopia’s recent political history indicated that academicians often from Universities, Colleges and even High Schools of the country have criticized all the last three governments including the one in power. This stands for truth, more democracy and freedom made the academia a target for all sorts of political harassment and deprive from the benefits they deserve for the services they rendered to the larger community. Even the current regime Ethiopia, which claims to be the result a political movement in the University, is now turned out to be one of the cruelest in cracking down the critics that are immerging out of any academic institutions in the country. These conditions basically severely damaged the academic freedom of the institutions such as freedom of speech and expression, and exercise free thoughts. I remember one top Ethiopia’s politician publicly saying that politics has nothing to do with academia as if the academia is not part of the larger community. So, in their view we (academia) are supposed do only what they would like us to do, but not to interfere with any political activity which affects our daily life. This reminds me of a quote from that famous book entitled “animal farm”, which strongly criticized the wrongs of Communism by George Orwel, that states, “Some animals are more equal than others”. I some time feel that our politicians regard themselves as if they are God given who are not supposed to be criticized by any sector of the society. As the result, they continue to do mistakes after mistakes for over the past 15 years in power using their military muscle. How a country under this condition can produces citizens free from fear who are able to express his/her idea freely and become productive citizen to the society at large?

ECONOMIC ISSUES

One of the grave concerns at the moment is the economic situation of those of us who are working in the government institutions of the country. Ethiopia is still the poorest of the poor and for most of us this does not look to end any time soon. The government is talking about an average 8% economic growth in the country at least since the past three years. However, the living expense is soaring at an alarming rate in recent months. With out exaggeration the price of the basic commodities such food items, clothing and housing rises by about 25% to 70% in recent months. However, the income of the civil servants remains unchanged since the past eight years or so. I am afraid with such high inflation rate many of us working in the government institutions will be unable to buy our own daily breads. Let alone to cover other basic expenses and be able to send our children’s to school. The situation seems to remain unchanged for any time in the near future. Still the government irresponsibly kept silent to such harsh poverty while their political Cadres earns good sum of official money as well as the amount they get from corruption. For example, a twelve grade complete Woreda level political representative earns much greater salary than a University professor. One can find endless irregularities in the lives of the Ethiopian people in the current political system. I will concentrate now only to those problems we are facing in Universities in Ethiopia.

Let me mention some of the irregularities I have witnessed in one of the University I worked for as a citizen of Ethiopia.

The Universities academic staffs are generally composed of three groups Ethiopians, Diaspora (Ethiopian origin) with citizenship of other countries (very few in number), and expatriates.

The salary of the expatriate staffs in the Universities ranges between $1500 and $2500 US while the local staffs is between $100 and $300 US per month. I use US dollar to make easy comparison for the reader. We are paid so for the same types of jobs, but in most cases local staffs are doing more because of our moral and national obligation. The expatriates are also accommodated freely in the University housing system. The expatriate may deserve to be paid so because of the comparable advantages they can get from another countries. What is wrong with local staffs? Why does our own government harshly treat us? Is this the way to brain gain?

There are two groups of academic staffs of Ethiopia origin. Those who are born lived and worked in Ethiopia and wished to remain as a citizen of Ethiopia. The second one are those who are Ethiopian origin (few in number) but also have citizenship of other countries. In principle, these two groups are viewed as one and the same when it comes to benefits, and it is in fact so for many who have second citizenship. But, there have been some exceptional cases. Until recently, some University officials of the Addis Ababa University who lived in the West and affiliated with government are treated as expatriate staff and get the same benefit as such with the salary about ten times greater than those local staffs who worked under the same academic rank.

Is this Ethiopia’s government effort to attract Diaspora? Or, Is this the government intention to let the countries intellectuals to immigrate? So, they can live in peace without critics for their wrong deeds. I do not understand why our government could not change its antagonistic stance towards the country’s intellectuals and try to work together for the common goal, for peaceful and prosperous Ethiopia. Could this be a solution to the countries multi-dimensional problems to depend irresponsibly on expatriates while the country is continuously losing it’s trained man power due to severe poverty?

* The author is based in Ethiopia. He can be reached through the SudanTribune.