EASIER TO ROB THAN TO RUN A BANK
By: T. BERHANE
I am prompted to reply to the various reports that I read in the print media as well as on the INTERNET about the agreement reached between Commercial Bank of Ethiopia and State Bank of India. As such I did not want to remain passive when in-experienced managers and most of all "OUTSIDERS" constantly attack one of the oldest and progressive institution like CBE. As an ex-employee of CBE and as one of the Union leaders of the employees during the era of Janhoy and Derg I am forced to give my view to the agreement. First I agree with the article entitled "Let Ethiopians do the job" by the REPORTER newspaper as reported on Vol. IV no. 259 on their Internet.
After the split of the Woynes this paper has started to report a balanced view. Please continue to join the voices of the majority. I used to consider the Reporter to be an extension of Walta information centre, the mouthpiece of the Palace Group. I wish you were a little bit harder on the government of their failed and deadly ethnic policy that brought poor service by employees of the bank. In short they are the root cause for everything what is going on in Ethiopia for the last ten years and should take full responsibility for that. The facts you presented are correct, however, I will strongly challenge the fatal decision made by the present bank authorities and the government with a short background history of Commercial Bank of Ethiopia itself.
I have also read Ato Seyoum Kassa's article entitled Anti-Corruption on Addis Tribune (Re. Aug 10/01) which explains about Business Process Reengineering (BPR) in detail if implemented correctly to benefit all Organizations, provided there are good listeners. I found your article very interesting and timely. BPR would work better if we have an open-minded government, unfortunately in Ethiopia this is not the case.
I know Ato Seyoum you are gentleman and dedicated Ethiopian, moreover you are own person (away from politics) and a devoted Ethiopian I might add who left the Government of Ontario in order to serve the people of Ethiopia. For that I envy you. I have no quarrel of the contract given to State Bank of India to take the management of CBE. India has become one of the leading countries in the Information Technology. Most of their citizens are now working here in Canada, USA and Germany. I am afraid that their service charge will cost the Bank, the customers and by extension the taxpayers of Ethiopia 2.1 billion dollars if there are taxpayers at all knowing that the majority of our people are unemployed. It is understandable as a businessman you expect prompt service and most of all to withdraw/deposit your own money any time on wishes to do. I see the solution differently from yours. With your background having worked for the Government of Ontario here in Toronto diligently the contract should have been given to your Company. You in return would have hired or contracted Ethiopians locally as well as among the Diaspora who are well educated and trained in the IT business. You know very well there are many Ethiopians living in North America and Europe who have the knowledge to do what the State Bank of India can do. Our people in the Diaspora, who are working in universities, financial institutions and government organizations could do a better job with a national feeling than foreigners. Yechalal! Yechalal! Unless the government of Legesse Zenawi through his agent Ato Tilhaun Abay, the present CEO of CBE has other motives to spend so much money, the money would have better been spent on education and health matter. Let me elaborate what I feel like any concerned Ethiopian. We all know that his government is in deep crisis after the break up with his former comrades. It is a matter of time His Excellency and his close friend the Honourable Sebhatu Nega and the others will run away ONE DAY like Col. Mengestu Haile Mariam did before them. Therefore, the State Bank of India will be a good facilitator to transfer money when that time comes and State Bank of India is the perfect bank to do just that. Dear Ethiopians India is one of the worst corrupt countries in the world. Speaking of robbing CBE, the branch in Adwa was robbed in 1976 by their predecessors of TPLF. I stand corrected. Since then the branches at Axum, Shire and Adigrat including Adwa had been robbed repeatedly by Woyne to finance their struggle against Derg. The moneys that were robbed from CBE in those days had helped and contributed to the PM and his friends to ascend to power that they are enjoying now at the expense of 60 million Ethiopians. Besides robbing banks, they had also robbed schools and hospitals. We all remember that when the Ministry of Health was short of medicines, the medicines robbed by Woyne, which was worth $7 million, were lent to the Ministry. Without shame the government asked to be refunded.
I do not want to see the demise of the Bank differently from that of the country as a whole. As you know both the Bank and Ethiopian Airlines including Civil Aviation were the icons of our country, especially the Airline with its shining tricolour (green, yellow & red) was the envy to the world. Recently we have witnessed in Edmonton what the flag meant for the 3000 thousand Ethiopians who live there when our heroic athletes won medals. There is no doubt that the service of the bank as we know it is not available anymore. There are reasons for this. During the Derg era the relationship of the union and management started to dwindle. There was no labour peace then and there is no labour peace now. As soon as Woyne took over Addis and the rest of the country the first thing they did was to attack the union members. From my sources in 1991 eight to twelve union activists were fired or jailed for rejecting the tribal government of Legesse Zenawi, then President. As their predecessors the Derg, the Woynes planted the present General Manager/President Ato Tilhaun Abay to head Commercial Bank of Ethiopia. Under his management when he implemented the ethnic policy of the government many qualified employees were forced to resign or took early retirement. Most of them went to work to the privately owned banks in Addis and its surrounding vicinity. Unfortunately Woyne cadres who do not know the ABC of banking replaced the qualified employees. Under the structural adjustment program also many qualified employees in the various government and public institutions were let go. Naturally the interference by the government and the bad relationship of the union with the management of the bank has contributed to the poor services that we witness now. Knowing the policy of the rouge government none of us should be surprised. The morale of the working class including that of the bank employees has gone down since the advent of TPLF/MLLT.
The result of course is poor service, inefficiency, corruption and what have you.
Generally in the banking industry Presidents or Managers are promoted from within and not from outside except when you appoint the Governor of a National Bank, even that has its own problem. The incoming individual will have a problem to get the cooperation of the ordinary staff members and supervisors of the various departments unless he/she does it very carefully without offending the majority staff members. As you have noticed since the days you resided as a citizen of Ethiopia, in the various Organizations there is no labour peace between the Government and the Unions. In the case of the Bank Derg planted their own Union leaders and the present government has also planted their own cadres who strongly believe in ethnic policy. Any would be union leader must be free from ethnic, race, creed and religion bias to become a true leader of a union and serve all members equally. This is not so under the present government policy that believes in the killization of our country
I do not want to assume that I know everything about the history of CBE but I do know that National and Commercial Bank emerged from State Bank of Ethiopia to avoid competition then by existing private banks such as Banco Di Roma, Banque De L'Indochine. Ato Menasie Lemma as Govrenor, and Lij Wonde Wossen Mengisha as Vice Governor headed the former, and the latter was headed by Ato Teferra Degufe now residing in Vancouver with his wife. State Bank of Ethiopia was actually governed and managed by foreigners before the Ethiopians that I mentioned above replaced them. Before State Bank "Bank of Abyssinia" was established during the reign of Menelik II. The assets and liabilities of this bank were inherited by State Bank of Ethiopia. Both Banks (NBE & CBE) moved in 1964 to the new building in front of Ministry of Defense. Under Ato Teferras's leadership potential employees were sent for further training to England, USA and Germany to the various banks of those countries. Just to name a few, National Westminster Bank in London, City Bank and Irving Trust Company in NewYork and Bank of America and National Trust and Savings Association in San Francisco and Deutsche Bank AG in Frankfurt and others too. In collaboration with the Faculty of Business Administration of Haile Selasie University the Bank established its own Banker's institution classes in its premises. Leaving aside his rocky relationship with the leaders of the UNION, Ato Tefera had worked day and night for the growth and expansion of the Bank. Many branches were opened through out the country because of his administration capability. He had also shown good leadership in making the Bank to compete with American, European and Japanese Banks to his credit. The present management should have followed his progressive ideas/vision to improve the services by introducing the new technology. Those who graduated from the institution have benefited themselves as well as the Bank. This kind of self-reliance helped to increase the efficiency of the services of the Bank. I have no problem of modernizing the service of the Bank but where I have, is the hiring of outsiders and spend 2.5 million dollars when the money can easily be used to train Ethiopians inside their country either in the Banker's institution (unless Woyne has killed the institution itself) I mentioned above or through the University.
In Canada and USA the Banks and Insurance Companies do buy the services of the Universities to train their employees. Such training can also be done in our country. I do not want to be naïve. I know the University was and is still regarded as the enemy of the PM, nevertheless, we can use the service of the University to train staff members of the various institutions. Our country needs the foreign currency to develop and rebuild our country that were destroyed by Derg and is still being destroyed by the government of Legesse Zenawi's divisive policy. Most Ethiopians and especially the Bank employees will not forget the 1.2 billion dollars that you freely gave to your mentor Issyas Aferweki through Tekie Beyene an ex-employee of CBE now the Governor of Bank of Isayas. Thanks to the REPORTER for that investigative report. I think it was early in l970 that the Asmara Branch shipped US$150,000.00 the equivalent of Eth$375,000.00 then to Head Office in Addis via Ethiopian Air Lines, unfortunately when the plane arrived at Bole International Airport the money was no where to be seen.
It was believed then that an insider had notified ELF or EPLF members whichever the case may be. In those days such- things were kept secrets and nobody wanted to say anything about it, nevertheless, the news leaked out somehow. No body knew where the money was stolen whether it was at Yohannes IV Airport or at Bole. EPLF had also financed its struggle in fighting both governments of Janhoy and Derg by robbing CBE branches in the rebel province until they took over Asmara in May 1991. While I am on the topic of EPLF I would like to remind the old and new employees of CBE, that the person who was elected to lead the Union on Hamile 17, 1968 (Our calendar) with the rest of us had betrayed Ethiopia and joined EPLF since 1970. I am sure most of you have heard about his defection before. He is related to the ardent Ethiopian Belaten Geta Lorenze who fought for the unity of Merb Melash together with the late H.E. Aklilu Habte Wolde including other prominent Ethiopians. Mikael Teferi is now the loyal servant of Assassino Issyas Awerki residing in Washington DC.
He was a very close and schoolmate of the late Miteku Ketsale a dedicated and honourable member of the union who shed his blood, with other active union members in 1970, in what he believed in like his generation The only time Derg listened to the suggestion of the Union was when we presented the names of foreign workers who should be replaced by Ethiopians. That was unanimously accepted by DERG and as a result the Bank saved so much money. That money saved from their pay went to hire other Ethiopians. In this instance Ato Tefera had failed in keeping the foreigners in the Bank's payroll for so long, otherwise he was a wise and far-sighted General Manager. Under Woyne's destructive policy Ethiopia is growing backwards in every aspect of it. The employees of the Bank that I served as well as the present employees except Woyne cadres strongly believed/believe in the slogan " yagerune serdo bageru bere " loosely translated Ethiopia for Ethiopians by Ethiopians. Finally Commercial Bank of Ethiopia begotten Mortgage Corporation of Ethiopia and Maritime Transit Service under the wise management skill of At Tefera Degufe. Commercial Bank of Ethiopia like its sister organizations, Ethiopian Air Lines, Civil Aviation, EELPA, Telecommunication Board of Ethiopia, The Air Force, The Navy and The Army are continuously demised by the three step sons of our country namely Legesse Zenawi, Sebhatu Nega and Isyas Afwerki. It took Ethiopia over 50 years to build such graceful and majestic institutions. For how long should this go folks? I think that is in everybody's mind. Generally those are my memories in my days and I am sure there are a lot of Ethiopians in Addis who have worked for the Bank throughout their entire life that will write the whole story positively and negatively including Ato Tefera Degufe.
Keep up the tradition and the culture of CBE employee's union that is justice and equality for every one and show loyalty, courtesy, respect and efficiency to customers. The things I mentioned will only happen under a self-confident manager/president who is free from ethnic virus otherwise the bank service will go down deeper and deeper and bribe and corruption will continue to get worse.
The true children of Ethiopia will continue to struggle to build a real Democratic Ethiopia and equal opportunity for all Ethiopians in all regions. This should be the aspiration and goal of all Ethiopians from all walks of life without further bloodshed.
Long live Ethiopia and our people!
[Opinions in this article are solely that of the writer.]