Famine Survivor Laments Decay at Once Thriving Resettlement Community

Abebe Ayenew, 61, was born and raised in Mota, a town in Gojjam (of the Amhara Regional State). However, due to the catastrophic drought that hit the nation in 1984/85, he could not sustain his life at his birthplace. He reminisces about what he went through during those harsh days.

"I lost my relatives, my cattle, and had to migrate to a place I do not know," he told Fortune soberly.
Abandoning his three hectares of land, Abebe fled his native land with his wife and seven children to join a huge resettlement project, Tana-Beles, in the Pawe Zone of the Beni-Shangul Regional State.

Funded by the Italian government, the resettlement and rehabilitation project lodged hundreds of thousands of famine victims in 1984/85, which is recorded as the worst famine in Ethiopian history, claiming the lives over one million people.

Following this famine, the then government wanted to resettle over 200,000 farmers from drought prone areas in the Amhara Region to Pawe, an area now in Beni-Shangul Gumuz. The original idea was to double Ethiopia's electric power and to provide irrigation for a settlement scheme that would take water from Lake Tana to the Beles River, across which five dams were to be built.

Egypt blocked a loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) because Cairo feared that the Tana-Beles project would consume too much Blue Nile water, according to an article in the New York Times published on February 7, 1990.

Italy came to the rescue with 400 million Br of financial support; and thus the project was launched in 1998 on 413,000hct of land.

An Italian construction firm still active in Ethiopia building hydroelectric dams, Salini Construction, was awarded the construction of the dams and the resettlement community, while the consultancy business went to the Italian firm Petrodini.

Abebe said that through the project, 46 villages and the localities were connected to other regions with gravel roads. Moreover, buildings, meeting halls, huge warehouses, bridges, tractors and agricultural machineries were acquired and built.

"By the time the government brought us to this place, we were fearful of evacuating our hometown," he recalled. "However, we were impressed by the construction activities that were being undertaken there. We were also told that we would become beneficiaries of electricity, education and health facilities as well as make a good living through irrigation farming."

Settling on five hectares of land in 'Village 24,' the output he reaped from the farm made Abebe gradually forget the scars left in his mind. However, everything turned upside-down when the Derg regime was ousted from power, he said.

The change of government in 1991 brought the project to a sudden halt.

"The Italians came here, and they helped to develop the project. I think it is a very sad situation," said an expert close to the project. "It was a very good beginning, and then that story came - instability and the change of government - which completely disrupted the project."

The project remained in the hands of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) for the following year before it was given to the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA). A taskforce of 40 experts from the various government agencies was established to study the possibility of rehabilitation and to propose a budget. Over 200 million Br, a substantial amount of it in foreign currency, was required, according to the study.

A decision by the Council of Ministers, which felt that the budget requested was too expensive at a time of a limping economic recovery, decided in March 1995 to liquidate the project, distributing the properties to at least 24 state-owned enterprises. It had also decided to establish in August 1995 an 11-member Board of Trustees with the responsibility to follow the implementation of its decision.

Over the years, the Board has handed over several properties once owned by the project: an airstrip to the Ethiopian Civil Aviation; agricultural machinery to four regional states; and hospitals, schools and kindergartens to the Beni-Shangul Regional State. Now, close to 75,000 settlers live in 47 villages, according to information from the Pawe Woreda Administration.

This reporter was at the Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State last week and noted that none of the agricultural machineries the region secured from the deserted project is in use. Structures that were built are also deteriorating due to lack of renovation.

The State has made the former camp for the project's workers a boarding school that is currently providing education to 100 students. Though this school also received agricultural machinery, the equipment is sitting idle to rust; the edifices are also in disrepair.

"We were told that everything here would be ours," Abebe stated in despair. "However, the only things we are left with now are small pieces of steel and a warehouse filled with garbage."

Indeed, as Abebe says, little pieces of steel litter the ground at Tana-Beles, and one large warehouse is filled with expired fertilizer.

Taye Habte, vice administrator of Metekel Zone, argues and that the machines the project gave them were completely obsolete and not a single one ever functioned. According to Taye, Zone officials offered the machines for the boarding school to repair and use, but repairs were never forthcoming. They were able, however, to make use of the hen houses, fruit orchards and vegetable gardens, though budget constraints have also left these assets in poor condition.

The region has a 288 million Br budget for the 2007/08 fiscal year; 36 million Br of this amount was obtained from the Regional State while the balance is a subsidy allocated by the federal government.

The House of Federation has recently decided to employ a different formula in determining budget subsidies from the federal government to regional states. The House decided to use regions' need for expenditure and their capacity to mobilise tax as key determinants, helping those with big shortfalls while rewarding regions that raise their own resources.

A lot is at stake for the regional states; a total of 14.2 billion Br in federal subsidies was allocated for the 2007/08 budget year. The Benishangul Gumuz Regional State, like other small regions, claims to have lost six million Birr in revenue from the latest subsidy formula.

Meanwhile, the project's enduring infrastructures such as water pipes, roads and flour mills continue to be used in spite of their decaying state, while the banana and rice processing machines still lay idle.

"These machines are becoming useless," Abebe said.( Wudineh Zenebe, AddisFortune)