Ethiopians Trapped By Lethargic State-Owned Telecom Monopoly

A soaring number of option-deprived customers and eye-watering packages continue to swell the earnings of the state monopoly Ethio telecom. In return the inglorious institution kept on crippling everything this country has achieved in the past with banks being the hardest hit Kalkidan Yibeltal

In February this year, while hosting his third presser with the local media since he assumed office as Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Hailemariam Desalegn was resolute in his response to a question from this magazine on whether or not his government was willing to assess the impact of running a dysfunctional state run telecommunication company on the economy.

His government, PM Hailemariam said, was not ready to privatize the telecom sector, “Not now, not in the near future.” Needless to say, that was not the right answer to the question, but it is the incumbent’s long held stand on the state monopoly, Ethio telecom. The giant service provider is spoiled by grave impairments and is often a source of growing public frustration.

Yet a soaring number of option-deprived subscribers especially to mobile phones and its eye-watering packages continue to swell its earnings. In the past six months alone Ethio telecom has amassed some $350 million (7 billion br.) in revenue. Numbers like this corroborate the ruling party’s recurring reference to the sector as a ‘cash cow.’

But it is a cash cow that is wreaking havoc to almost everything this country has achieved in the past two decades, particularly to most of the things the nation’s infant banking sector wanted to accomplish as of late.