Premier faces his critics

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi faced his critics over the weekend during a public debate on policy issues. Sunday's debate was the first in a series, organised by the independent Inter Africa Group, aimed at "fostering the culture of debate and the exchange of views between the government and other stakeholders on public policy issues". On this occasion, representatives of the private sector and civil society groups criticised the government's economic policies, describing them as a failure and saying the economy had not registered any growth. According to the pro-government Walta Information Center, other members of the private sector slammed the government's agriculture-based industrial development plan and called for schemes whereby rural land could be privatised and under which farmers could secure bank loans and adopt modern agricultural techniques. They also questioned the existence of a free and independent justice system, describing the current system as "partisan", Walta said. Meles defended the industrialisation plan, saying it was an appropriate development strategy for countries such as Ethiopia whose economy was predominantly agricultural. He said although Ethiopia had registered an average five percent economic growth over the last 10 years, its impact had been minimal because of the country's fast-growing population. According to Walta, he also said his government had acted responsibly with regard to the current drought through effective early warning mechanisms and by keeping sufficient food in reserve until pledges by the international community started arriving. On the land issue, he said further fragmentation of farm plots was out of the question. "The issue of land, as far as his government was concerned, was a dead issue and land would remain public property," Walta reported. The rebel Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) has dismissed the debate as a ploy to "refurbish the badly-damaged image of the [ruling] EPRDF [Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front]". It claimed participants were "selectively invited" and called on opposition organisations not to take part in "such a dubious meeting". "The Sheraton [hotel] meeting of opposition organisations with Prime Minister Meles is a colourful, tasteless display that is to give the EPRDF an opportunity to appear as a tolerant and transparent regime," the OLF statement said. Click here for earlier story