ESAT News (February 1, 2018)
The Ethiopian regime is behind its loan payments of about 163M USD to China and other creditors that was due in January and beginning February. It was also learnt that the loans for electric power projects were taken at exorbitant interest rates of upto 35.3%.
According to a leaked document obtained by the Oromia Media Network (OMN), the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation was behind loan payments of about 35.4M USD that was due in January and beginning February.
The letter by the chief Executive of the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation, Azeb Asnake, sent to the Ministry of Finance and to Debretsion Gebremichael, Board Chairman of the Corporation, and obtained by OMN revealed that the country was behind payments of about 60M USD and 83M Euros (~ 163.5M USD).
Professor of Economics, Mohammed Abbajebel Tahiro, told OMN that the huge amount of overdue loans shows that the double digit economic growth report as well as the rhetoric by the regime that Ethiopia is a fast growing economy was bogus. “It shows that the double digit economic growth figures were cooked up,” the professor said.
The country pays one third of the loan in interest which is unheard of and outrageous, according to Prof. Tahiro.
The leaked document from the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation shows the interest for a 14.8M USD loan from the China EXIM Bank was about 5M USD, while interest for a loan of 3.7M USD from CET Supplier’s Credit is 1.3M USD.
The leaked document also revealed that the Board Chairman of the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation, Debretsion Gebremichael, who is also coordinator of the mega hydro electric dam project called the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, has responded to the letter by Mrs. Azeb Asnake saying “ignore it!”
Ethiopia owes a total of 40 billion dollars to creditors.