HOPE TURNED INTO DOUBT

Reflection in Search of Answers

HAIMANOT LAKEW

AUGUST, 2007

Recently, after seeing the news bulletins about the fact that the EPRDF leaders were holding town hall-like meetings across most of the Addis Ababa sub-cities, and after observing that the across the board corruption and mismanagement of the city government was the main issue being addressed by the media, so that even the mayor of Addis Ababa came out publicly to explicitly state that such rampant corruption was rapidly getting out of control, I felt encouraged to join this dialogue. Obviously (and quite understandably), in the meeting between EPRDF leaders and each sub-city’s residents, the latter party’s primary concern was airing their grievances about their daily struggle and the toll that inflation was taking on their daily consumption of goods, for the purpose of finding a resolution to such ongoing issues as housing, utilities, and consumption. Without neglecting these outstanding and burning issues that the majority of average residents are concerned with, I want to share a different dimension in the problems that residents dealing with city local government agencies, might face in all aspects of their daily lives. I raise these issues not so that they are seen as isolated incidents but coming to a conclusion of seeing them as systemic problems. This is why, in this paper, I would like to take the reader through an extensive array of detailed personal experiences, navigating each contour of how a typical resident must interact with the various governmental agencies in order to accomplish a given task. Within this paper, I will recount the lengthy and arduous process that I had to undergo in order to renovate my house, while simultaneously highlighting the four key departments that I had to directly deal with in order to do so. These departments were, respectively, the Lafto Sub-City Land Administration Department (Room 38), the Lafto Sub-City Construction Permit Department (Room 36), the federal agency that oversees government-owned buildings (more commonly referred to as kiray bate), and finally, the overarching institution known as Lafto Sub-City. My goal in writing this is not to simply expose the weaknesses of the system or of individuals within the system but rather to demonstrate in detail its problems and above all to incite some solution to which we can all contribute in order to address these issues. In conclusion, at a time of urgency on the part of the federal government in its call for accelerating economic urban development in order to attack the rising negative consequence of inflation, I would like to probe and question whether this noble and ambitious plan is compatible with the daily work culture at local institutions like kebeles, woredas, and sub-city institutions and in turn, whether or not these institutions have the necessary capacity and share a common vision to carry out this call. Before I dive into the heart of this paper, I would like to provide my immediate impressions of Addis Ababa, upon my return after twenty-five years of living in the United States.

Addis Ababa struck me as a city that was in deep decline and decay, and without exaggeration, as a city that was about to crumble. From a public management perspective, it was immediately obvious to observe that Addis Ababa, for two or three decades, had had its resources drained away without any kind of strategic investment in capital projects within the city. As a matter of fact, a paper written by the Forum for Social Studies in December, 1999, under the auspices of Meheret Ayenew of the Faculty of Business and Economics in Addis Ababa University, eloquently demonstrates this obvious problem of catastrophic proportions. To cite from this paper, Ayenew observes that the length of Addis Ababa’s road network was a mere 400 kilometers as opposed to the 3000 kilometers that would have been necessary for a city of its size. He also notes that the total housing numbers in Addis Ababa were merely 350,000 in 1996, and that “Out of this, 112,000 were occupied by businesses and shops; and 238,000 were residential units.” (12) Based on the data gathered by this paper, there was a desperate need for 10,000 housing units to be built every year by the government, for the staggering amount of 750 million birr in order to simply fill the gap between supply and demand for housing. Simultaneously, unemployment was running rampant at an average of 30-35 percent and the city was also home to 40 percent of the nation’s total homeless children. By way of public services, “35-40 per cent of the solid waste generated is left uncollected and dumped on any available waste ground.” (10) To top it all off, only “…16 per cent of the population have private toilets, 54 per cent use shared latrines and about 30 per cent (or some 900 residents) do not have any toilets and are forced to use whatever available open space in the city.” (11) From these shocking statistics, we can deduce that Addis Ababa was in desperate need of a political will on the part of the government to reverse this decline and simultaneously educate the residents that in order to overcome these obstacles, they too would need to be willing to understand the cost and share the burden. It is sickening to note that Addis Ababa was a city that was run solely on an 80 million birr budget in the early 1990s, as opposed to the current 2007 budget of 6.5 billion birr that Addis Ababa commands. In short, the city would have to swallow a bitter pill if it wanted to see an all-out attack on these fundamental problems. It was with these issues in mind, that I posed one of my questions to the Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, during the inauguration of the new Embassy in Washington D.C. in 2001, urging him to reconsider the need for establishing a strong city manager form of government in Addis Ababa as well as in other major cities in Ethiopia.

True to my optimism and desire, EPRDF finally realized the need for change and brought political appointees. In Addis Ababa, it was a man named Arkebe who came to the city’s rescue. He had entered into a historical opportunity to lay down a foundation for change, which he did. City infrastructural development was begun: investment in roads, the sewer system, housing, etc. As far as I’m concerned I was witnessing a complete transformation, that was almost like witnessing the shaping of a city’s future. I saw enormous optimism and energy every time I visited Ethiopia. It was indeed a privilege to witness this astonishing change. It can be categorically stated that the hallmarks of Arkebe’s time in office can be summed up as follows: the establishment of decentralization of the city’s administration with the introduction of government at sub-city level, introducing the initiative for the growth of small business owners, openly and aggressively tackling the HIV/AIDS rate in Addis Ababa, and above all broadening the tax base of Addis Ababa’s revenue system by systematically undermining and eventually uprooting the informal tax collecting system to a formal and regulated tax system. This is the principal reason why the city’s residents are now reaping the benefits of a 6.5 billion birr annual budget, with the highest proportion of this sum being allocated to capital projects within the city.

Unfortunately, in the 2005 election, instead of accelerating this historical comeback and developmental progress within the city, the city fell prey to a severe setback due to the crisis of this election. By rejecting its democratic responsibility of administering the city where it won every seat, the opposition missed an opportunity to either show the residents its own alternative or follow in the path set by the previous administration instead, directly or indirectly, derailed this change to hope and optimism that was previously evident. In other words, from a public management perspective, the opposition party created a political vacuum where political legitimacy was seemingly paramount to the city’s residents as opposed to the previous problems that I have stated, which directly affected their quality of life.

In the middle of this deterioration of Addis Ababa’s city administrative system, in attempting to fill the present political vacuum, a number of respected citizens stepped up to run the city as a caretaker government appointed by the federal government. Although I admire the nobility of Addis Ababa’s caretaker government official in undertaking this selfless endeavor, what the city lost in short was leadership with a can-do attitude to push vigorously for the institution of developmental advances without any consideration for short-term political gains.

In the absence of a can-do attitude and reform-minded government, from where previously begun reforms had found their roots, it was natural then that in the absence of strong city leadership that corruption, lack of efficiency, dominance of a demoralized workforce, and lack of trust, transparency, and accountability to residents, would become rampant. It was within this uncertain political environment and culture of work that I started to have business with the Lafto Nefas-Silk Sub-City government. I now turn to the difficult experience I encountered in the process.

After living for 25 years abroad in the United States, I committed to the decision to move permanently to Ethiopia. Making this kind of drastic move all at once, especially having a family and children, was not a simple matter. The first phase of this transition on the part of my family was to move my elderly mother to Ethiopia by buying a house at Old Airport in her name in 1998. Unfortunately, my mother passed away after having lived there for a couple of years. Now, after her death, I moved into her house and decided to do some renovations prior to my permanent residence in Ethiopia.

I was confronted with a choice between two options in how to proceed in my desire to renovate my house. One alternative was simply to start without the city’s permit, which would be illegal, and if noticed by neighborhood Kebele officials, I was advised that they could be easily handled with a few well-placed bribes. The second alternative was to follow the legal procedures, largely considered to be a futile endeavor, and start the permit process at Lafto Sub-City with a commitment and a pledge to understand the process thoroughly. Having committed to this pledge to gain this experience-based knowledge of city government, I went to the city administration in December, 2005. Here, there are two stages that anyone who has a desire to renovate or build a house must go through. The first stage is that one must go to the sub-city land administration in order to secure what is referred to as a Plan Agreement Certificate. Once this Plan Agreement is secured, then one proceeds to the second stage where one receives the Construction Permit but to get this permit, one must undergo a rigorous process that might include such aspects as receiving neighbor consent, which in my case involved obtaining the go-ahead from a government-owned building commonly known as Kiray Bate.

When I went to the Lafto Nefas-Silk Sub-City Land Administration to get the Plan Agreement, Ato Reda Alemu in Room 38 on the first floor, advised me that the title deed of the property should be changed from my mother’s name to mine and that in order to proceed with this, I would need the court’s recognition of my inheriting the property from my mother. In order for the court process to take place, I was first able to get in touch with a high-powered lawyer through the efforts of friends, who promised me to get the court certificate within weeks as long as I paid him 5000 birr. So, without appearing at the court, by merely sending my three elderly family members as witnesses, indeed to my surprise, the lawyer delivered upon his promise.

Despite the speedy resolution, questions were being raised in my mind. Obviously, as long as you have money and connections anywhere in the world, you can work around the system; this is not exceptional to Ethiopia. What bothered me however, knowing myself, is how ordinary people without this money and without these connections, would have had to go through the formal process to achieve the same result that I did. This was my first encounter, a sort of reality check.

After having secured the court document in February, 2006, I flew back to Addis Ababa from abroad and in March, 2006, personally proceeded to Lafto Nefas-Silk Sub-City Administration’s offices, to the land administration department (Room 38), in order to have the property deed changed from being in my mother’s name to my name. To my surprise, there were close to sixty or seventy other residents seeking some type of service within this department. Bewildered by the chaotic multitude of people, almost all loudly begging for the attention of Ato Reda Alemu, who was in charge of initially addressing each person’s need, I felt as if I was at an auction. After more than an hour, attempting to get his attention, competing with my fellow residents, pushing and shoving adding to the already tense atmosphere, I was finally able to get him to listen to my case. Showing him the court document and explaining my desire to proceed, he eventually informed me that they were not able to immediately find my mother’s file which would be necessary to process the form. Not being successful in this initial attempt, and not having the necessary time in Addis Ababa to find this file, since I needed to return abroad soon, I arranged it so I gave my elderly family member the power of attorney so that they could act in my name in following my case. From March, 2006 to the end of June, 2006, they were not able to proceed with my case because they were still not able to locate my mother’s file. Within this four-month period, my family member would come to Room 38 at least three times a week and at no point was this file located. Again, out of growing desperation and frustration, I informed people outside of the institution who had higher authority to make some inquiries into why things were taking so long and to question Ato Reda Alemu. Coincidentally or not, within three days of their questioning, my mother’s file was finally able to be found and in mid-July, 2006, the name on the deed was changed. This one step took four months and almost 40-50 appointments with Ato Reda Alemu to accomplish. What bothered me most was not the idea of my mother’s file being lost, especially understanding the fact that the decentralization of the city administration was new, but rather the complete collapse of procedural issues at the desk of Ato Reda Alemu. I am afraid to believe that one small lapse on the part of a single clerk, in this case, Ato Reda Alemu, brought the entire procedure to a complete halt. Giving the benefit of the doubt, if we assume that the file was lost with no foul play, shouldn’t a back-up procedure already have been in place so that I would have been able to proceed without waiting for four months, especially since the original deed in my mother’s name was already in my possession? In fact, on 9/2/1998 (Ethiopian Calendar) we submitted a request regarding this issue (see Exhibit 1). In addition, I also had the court document acknowledging my right to own my mother’s property.

It was now the winter, so I was forced to pause in my efforts. On Thursday, January 3, 2007, now having the property deed in my name, I went ahead and began the actual plan agreement procedure in the Lafto Nefas-Silk Sub-City Land Administration building. Since I’m a resident of Kebele 04, I was informed that I should come back on Monday to file the form because that was the day that was designated for Kebele 04 residents to address their needs. Overhearing me ask specific questions of the person in charge regarding at what time I should arrive there Monday morning, one of the residents who was also waiting to receive some service, sensing that I was probably from abroad, advised me to be at the office very early since a huge line would form quickly. On Monday, taking his advice, I arrived there at 6:30 AM to wait for an office that opened at 8:30 AM. Having secured my place as the second person in line, I observed close to 40 or 50 people arrive there before 8:30. Soon after completing the round of security checks at the gate, I took part in what seemed like the 100-meter dash to Room 38, competing with 40 to 50 equally determined contestants. Still retaining my status as second in line at the reception area, the young man at the desk gave the first person in line a form, which he took somewhere else. Sensing that it was now my turn, I asked the young man to give me the form I needed and start the process for which I would also need to pay a 200 birr fee. However, he informed me that I would have to wait for the first man in line to return with the form. Unbeknownst to me, there was only one form which each person had to photocopy outside of the room, before being able to fill it out. I was completely puzzled and shocked. Knowing that I had to pay the 200 birr fee and yet the department didn’t even have the necessary form to distribute to all the people behind me who would also need to fill out the form. Finally, I had to adjust myself to the existing culture and wait until the first man returned with the form. What was perhaps even more disgusting about this already inefficient system was the fact that one couldn’t even read the form because it had been photocopied about a million times already and as a result, the letters were barely discernable. At any rate, I had to fill it out, so I began to ask others what the form said, and a small group formed, trying to read what was on the paper and bonding over our collective translations. To this day, I have a copy of this form, holding it as part of an archive of this department’s efficiency or lack thereof.

After finally finishing the form and giving it to the young man, I had to wait close to two or three hours, not knowing what the procedure was at this point. After continually asking the young man about where I stood in the procedure, he informed me that my form had gone on to the file department so that my entire house file could be found in order to continue with the processing procedure. My worst nightmare was about to come true, namely, that my file would once again not be located, starting me on yet another four-month ordeal to find it. All of the files were arranged onto large bookshelves so that I could actually see the man who was in charge of locating the various files. As I saw him push and pull different files, I observed one of the most disorganized systems that I had ever encountered in my life. Finally, when I had the chance to ask this gentleman who was in charge of locating the files, he asked me if I knew my code number and that without it, he would not be able to proceed. Seeing my frustration as I began to raise my voice, a lady behind the desk came to my assistance and asked me my name. Next, she walked over to a nearby desk that had the nameplate “Weyzero Genet Gebremedin” and after quickly checking on her computer, told me what my code number was and warned me to save it on my cell phone so that I would not forget it.

Finally, my file was found and it was getting close to lunchtime so the office would soon be closed. I still didn’t know what the next step was and again I was asking the young man about the status of my form. He told me that it would have to go through different steps of procedure and so I would have to wait. Eventually, I was told to return in the afternoon at which point I was told to come back on Thursday, January 18, 2007, in the afternoon, to have my form completed.

On the afternoon of January 18, I came back, believing that everything had been completed and that I would be able to receive the approved plan agreement. To my unpleasant surprise, I didn’t know the specific location or desk where I was supposed to pick up the agreement since there were close to twenty to twenty-five people working behind the desk. Finally, asking the other people who were there for similar cases on that specific date, I was told to go to Weyzero Genet Gebremedin’s desk to pick up the finished plan agreement form. I went over with about five or seven other people to the desk, only to find it completely empty, with no one there to explain to us where the absent Weyzero Genet could be found. Finally, after hearing that she had been there that morning, I asked if there was a supervisor or someone who was replacing her, whom I could speak to in Weyzero Genet’s place. In the same office, I was directed to a glass-encased office, where I could make my complaint and find out where to get the plan agreement. Amazed to find someone who dared to question the system that they had all learned to live with, the same group of six or seven followed me to this new office, presided over by Ato Girma Meshesha, with the official title of Team Leader of the entire department. What a team leader! Politely asking him about our respective appointments to receive our plan agreements, he arrogantly responded, with not a single apology, that the woman in question was sick and had left for the day. My next question was, shouldn’t there at the very least be some kind of information on her desk explaining that she would not be available for the day and if possible, letting us know when we should return? I then asked if it wasn’t his responsibility to find someone to replace Weyzero Genet to take over her responsibilities in her place so that the services she provided would not be discontinued. Offended that a resident would suggest to question his style of management, he simply replied out of anger, “I had never thought of it”. By then, in my mind, I remembered that Thursday afternoon was the day that the Tabot was taken out in preparation for the Friday festivities in honor of Timket. I had become so cynical, disillusioned and frustrated by the system that I began to suspect that Weyzero Genet was in fact not sick and was probably fulfilling her spiritual duties at the expense of all of our appointment times. Only in Addis Ababa would this be a probable option!

Therefore, on the next Monday morning, knowing exactly at which desk I was supposed to get my plan permit, I headed straight over to Weyzero Genet’s desk and asked her about my previous appointment on Thursday to pick up the plan agreement. Again, she told me that all plan agreements could be picked up exclusively in the afternoon and not in the morning. I had no other choice but to follow her directive and come back again that afternoon, in the hopes that I would finally be able to complete the process. That afternoon, I received the plan agreement paper. The first phase, the first hurdle, had been crossed.

Before proceeding to the next phase, which would take me to Room 36 (which I will explain later), let us explore how the problems of the Lafto Sub-City Land Administration (Room 38) could have been better resolved for the benefit of both the residents and the office itself. Given the experiences that I went through, namely, receiving contradictory information from one clerk to another, postponing appointments without the clerks giving the residents due notice, making this an accepted requirement within the process and thus ingraining it as a part of accepted office culture without any kind of sensitivity to human dignity. My suggestions to this department are as follows:

1.) Establish a permanent information desk where residents can receive forms and be informed about the complete and uniform procedures. This means that in order for anyone to come to Room 38 to get any type of service, he will encounter the customer service facilitator at the desk and whoever is in charge of this facilitator will supply the resident with a form explaining its requirements. Knowing how many other residents are waiting to complete their business, the facilitator can provide the client with the approximate date and time for the next appointment to advance his/her business with Room 38. In the meantime, the facilitator will provide the form with all of the necessary requirements that the resident will need to bring back when he/she returns the form after filling it out at home. Now, since there is a system of knowing a day beforehand approximately how many people are showing up, the department head in charge of all the case files will be able to pull the necessary files for the next day’s operations so that when the clients arrive, they will not be forced to waste their time in locating their files. In addition, this will add to the efficiency of the department itself and above all, no loopholes for bribery or begging will be created by which clients would pursue the fileholder to expedite their process, thus bringing to an end the culture of seeing the person in charge of the files as the untouchable authority to whom all must defer, unless, one has the appropriate means of negotiation, namely money.

2.) Establish a system whereby clients will be well-informed about where to go in case there is any grievance to be reported. In a highly bloated bureaucracy, every clerk protects his/her turf as the site of his/her single authority, making it easy for corruption to thrive at the expense of residents. In order to combat this easily manipulated loophole and red tape, every form that clients fill should inform them about where to address their grievances in the case that they are held up for an unreasonable amount of time at any one desk. If there is a need for an appointment (which there usually is) at a given desk, establish a system where these appointments are written so that they can be easily evaluated and reviewed by supervisors in case of potential solicitation, directly or indirectly, of bribery on the part of the clerk. In this way, unnecessary frustration on the part of residents will be minimized because any one who attempts to blackmail his clients will be easily identified and dealt with by his superiors. In my case, for no explicable reason within the realm of comprehension, I couldn’t proceed from March 2006 to June 2006 supposedly because my mother’s file was unable to be located. Thus, I was blackmailed and at the mercy of Ato Reda Alemu with no recourse to other options or some kind of back-up system to which to appeal. What was worse, all information was relayed orally between us and Ato Reda Alemu so there were no written records to which we could refer when attempting to move the process along. Refer here again to Exhibit 1, the letter from us on May 9, 2006 to the department head, in which one clearly sees us appealing for intervention to find a solution, namely by finding a substitute system for our supposedly missing file.

3.) Establish a working system whereby during all office hours, the department is fully functioning, especially when there are scheduled appointments. On any appointment day, if one of the civil servants cannot be there due to illness or any other reason, the department head should make someone available at the missing person’s desk if possible and if not, at least inform the clients who are waiting for him/her. Based on my experiences in Room 38, there were clearly people waiting to get their final plan agreement paper from Weyzero Genet Gebremedin. From my informal information gathering from the residents, it was not unusual that if there was a missing clerk for one’s case to come to a halt for sometimes weeks and months at a time. No one would be there to fill in the absence in order to accelerate the backlog of cases. It was precisely because of this accepted culture that if the clerk is not there at his/her desk, simply wait until his/her return, that Ato Girma Meshesha did not comprehend his responsibilities of informing the public of any inconvenience created by the sickness or other unexplained illness of a member of his staff. As a matter of fact, he was extremely offended by the mere suggestion that this might fall under his job description.

4.) Establish a culture of responsiveness to the residents’ needs and have a culture of positive regard for people. The glaring manifestation of contempt for residents that I experienced in this department, the complete absence of not seeing their clients as residents, as taxpayers, who have every right and expectation to see their daily business within this department go forward smoothly and with the minimum amount of setbacks and antagonism was astonishing. With no exaggeration, from what I witnessed, if a survey were to be taken, 80-90% of the residents who were there for any kind of business, would leave with a complete disregard for the city government of Addis Ababa and for the federal government of EPRDF. This department with its negative regard for all people serves as a breeding ground within the community for anti-government sentiment to grow and flourish. I hope that the appropriate leaders will take the time to give sufficient attention to this openly practiced work culture.

Once a client finally secures the plan agreement paper from Room 38 for any type of renovation, including building a house, the next step is to proceed to the Construction Permit Department (Room 36).

During the last week of January, 2007, I proceeded to Room 36 and met the head of the department, Ato Melaku Abera, with my plan agreement on hand and politely requested what the next step of my process would be. I was given a very clear and legible form to fill plus I was asked whether I had a blueprint for my project. Having acknowledged that I already had the blueprints with me, he informed me whom to see, who turned out to be Molaleng, a young architect, whose desk wasn’t very far from that of Ato Melaku Abera.

When I went to see Ato Molaleng with my blueprint and the plan agreement, surprisingly, he asked me to go outside of the building and buy a classer in which to place the documents before I gave them to him. I felt shocked and ashamed at the lack of this small gesture of organized customer service, which at the very least the department can pursue to satisfy their clients, a gesture which might have cost them no more than 40 or 50 cents per client. Not only did I have to go out of the building and buy the classer, I then had to write on the classer all of the necessary information like my name and the file’s name; surprisingly, the only thing he didn’t ask me to do was to arrange his desk so that my file would be neatly placed alongside his other documents. What a bizarre and medieval culture exists in our public servants’ minds! It is saddening to observe this young architect, the vanguard of his generation, who could have stood for change and for the future, already succumbing to the existing antiquated culture at work.

Anyhow, after telling me that he would need to review the blueprints for a couple of days, he instructed me to see him after that period of time. As usual, this Ethiopian civil servant did not give me a specific time or date at which to show up but instead gave me some vague time reference, neglecting to tell me whether I should return in the morning or the afternoon, so that I had to figure this out on my own. When I showed up after a couple of days, he did tell me that the blueprints would need to be modified. I posed a very fundamental issue to Ato Molaleng: as a client, willing to spend a modest 200,000-300,000 birr to renovate my residence, why should I be directly involved in the modification of the blueprint? Why wasn’t there a system by which the architect, whose very name and professional license was on the blueprint, could resolve this issue through a couple of meetings and hearings with him? First of all, this was not my area of expertise, even if he did explain what needed to be changed on the blueprint; there should have been a clear procedure requesting or at least suggesting that the office under Ato Molaleng request a hearing with his respective counterpart. Instead, I find here the most archaic and medieval procedures at work in the city government.

So, informing my contractor that he would need to resolve some architectural issues with Ato Molaleng, I faced another serious obstacle in attempting to fulfill all of the department’s requirements from the form that I had to fill out. One of the requirements in the form, on page 11 (Exhibit 2), was that all neighbors living adjacently to the residence would have to give me their consent, without which I would not be able to obtain the required permit to start the renovations. In the first place, I didn’t really know my neighbors beyond occasional hellos. Plus, I didn’t even know if they were owners or renters. To my surprise, one of my neighbors who was renting out her house, having received a DV, was in the United States. The other gentleman who owned the other house had gone to Harer for a funeral and wouldn’t show up for another three weeks. Meanwhile, the building behind my residency was owned by the federal government (commonly called “kiray bate”). I didn’t have any clue whom to contact in order to get the consent of the kiray bate’s owners.

During the first week of February, after having a talk with the lady who was living in the kiray bate, it took us almost two weeks to find the exact location of the person who would have the authority, as a neighbor, to give the kiray bate’s consent to my project. While after making calls to the United States and Harer, I had secured the consent of my other two neighbors within the first two weeks of February, I was facing a major headache and obstacle in the kiray bate. I had to physically bring a formal letter (Exhibit 3-Letter, dated February 23, 1999) to the main office located in Kasanches, requesting the consent of the kiray bate. Here there were two principal people whose names I would like to draw your attention to: Ato Abas Kedir who was the director of architectural service and Ato Asnake Bekele, who was a technical director of architecture. I had come to their office, not as an individual seeking personal benefit of services from their respective offices but rather at the insistence of another city agency expressly requesting their approval. Their contempt was shown by their constant rescheduling of appointments, continuous demands to change the blueprint, and delaying the process for two months. For example Weyzero Senait, who was the aide of Ato Abas Kedir, and who initially came to my house to see the blueprint, was the one who carried out the on-site inspection and came with the full agreement of a new blueprint with her approval. After this, after a couple of weeks of continuous rescheduling, Ato Abas Kedir would come up with a new number to be adjusted, and as a result, an entirely new blueprint would have to be drawn up. In the middle of this process, whether from Weyzero Senait, who had initially given her approval, or her boss Ato Abas Kedir, not once did they cite a published and codified building code for their reasoning but instead depended on their own, personal discretion. In a way, they would continuously abuse their power to delay the process. As if this wasn’t hurdle enough, after their approval, it had to go to Ato Asnake Bekele for his approval. Here again his secretary would say that he wasn’t there even when he was clearly present, which once again made the process drag on for much longer than necessary. This is something which calls for an immediate and closer scrutiny of the department. What I mean by close scrutiny is that here is a request at their desk for consent from another governmental agency, not an individual, which would seem to indicate that expedited attention should be paid. On top of that, here is an individual resident and owner who has no business or desire to be there in their office, meaning that he is not soliciting any kind of service benefit from their office, but is there only because he needs to fulfill the city government’s regulations. Seeing how they were able to get away with these kinds of work habits in my case, I could now imagine how these incompetent, unprofessional, and inconsiderate (to say the least) individuals could abuse their power in relation to their own individual kiray bate’s clients. Let me make it very clear from the outset: from these federal government officials or for that matter at the sub-city government level, where I dealt with all of my issues, no one has come forward overtly seeking bribes. They don’t have to do this. However, what high government officials, both on city and federal levels, should be keenly aware of is that it is the ordinary resident who has business with the city government and who is desperately looking for an easy way out in order to accomplish his/her ends, who initiates the bribery in most cases. What I mean by that is that our experiences with the above-mentioned so-called team leaders in their respective departments clearly indicate that it is their actions, their incompetence, and their delay tactics which send out a clear, if silent, message. To put it plainly, it was my responsibility to informally find a way to reach out to them. It was due to my determination not to succumb to this entrenched and informal system of opportunities for initiating corruption in most places that I had already encountered. The price that I had to pay was to see my files gather dust at the desks of such unproductive people as Ato Abbas Kedir and Ato Asnake Bekele at Federal Kiray Bate Office from February to April. The most outright manifestation of opportunities for corruption practice came about two weeks after I had secured their consent, on two occasions. First, on the first of May, three kiray bate officials came to see me at home, in order to see the initial phases of construction. Two weeks later, before I had even obtained the work construction permit from Lafto Nefas-Silk Sub-City, Weyzero Zimam came also to inspect the work. I want to draw attention to the fact that as I have indicated earlier, Kiray Bate office was simply asked to consent to the renovation of my house, as a neighbor, but in no form or shape does it have the jurisdiction to oversee the work in progress. Even if they harbor a concern over any kind of illegal construction on my part, the proper and legal action for them to take would be to submit a written reminder to Lafto Nefas-Silk Construction Permit Department which holds sole authority to oversee the renovation process. Secondly, if we believe for a second that their persistent visits to oversee private property construction are only attributed to their high sense of duty or even a moral imperative towards protecting government property buildings, I doubt that further research would uncover such consistency and high professionalism in their previous records. As a matter of fact, I am determined to carry out further research in such matters in the future. May this investigation take me where it will!

By the end of April, after two months of hassling and bitterness from the Federal Kiray Bate Office, I secured their consent and came back to Lafto, back to Room 36. After two months of waiting to get the kiray bate’s signature, here again in Lafto, in Room 36, I had to go through the entire blueprint process again and again to receive the final permit on May 23. The blueprint could have been reviewed and completed independently while I was working on getting the third signature from Kiray Bate. Instead of that, from the last week of April to May 23, I had to suffer through constant reschedulings of appointments with Ato Zewdu, at times given an appointment time on a specific date, and arriving only to find that the entire office was closed for a meeting. Finally, on May 14, when I thought that everything was close to being resolved to get my construction permit, I was told that my files had to go to another office commonly known as Biret Kifil or Number 2 office in order to obtain approval for the structural plan. Thanks to Ato Gataneh Abebe, who was in charge of the structural department office and who expeditiously facilitated this process in the most efficient way possible, at times even using his own personal mobile phone, a highly unheard of practice within Addis Ababa’s bureaucratic culture, I secured the final permit on May 23. He was extremely responsible and was one of the few department heads who seemed to have a high regard for human beings. Instead of dragging on the process for another extra month, something that I had already experienced at different levels, Ato Gataneh Abebe completed the process within two weeks. In short, an endeavor which I had started during the second week of January at the construction permit office came to an end on May 23. Inconceivable as it is, the process of securing a mere construction permit from Lafto Nefas-Silk Sub-City, Room 36, for what was a relatively small renovation to complete, costing me around 300,000 birr, and an unwavering desire on my part to exercise my civic duty of acting within the law, taught me a good lesson about city government as I watched a relatively simple project take close to five months to accomplish. I wonder, with this kind of pace, how private urban economic activity can be expected to flourish in cooperation with Addis Ababa’s city government. It’s a shame.

Since the driving force behind this paper is not to merely accuse the department’s public servants, as I have repeatedly stated earlier, and moreover is not a mere fulfillment of some sort of personal agenda against certain public servant individuals but instead, is derived from an interest in how the agencies and departments exercise their delegated powers (either from city councils or the mayor) in the rule-making process. By probing this delicate and unchecked discretionary power, we might be able to create an environment that renders the department more able to become the most efficient and effective that it can be. And above all, as a part-time resident for the time being, the genuine desire for change in Lafto Sub-City, compels me to offer my suggestions to this department in order for it to foster a more customer-friendly culture.

Granted, the initial form that I was given in this department was far more legible than the one we were subjected to at Room 38.

1.) Establish a uniform reviewing hearing process. One of the most important functions of this department is to make sure that the building code regulations are strictly enforced during any construction project. To do that, instead of subjecting ordinary residents to submit the blueprint themselves, encourage a system whereby the architects of the blueprint and the office will have a definite hearing date on which to review and ascertain whether or not modifications need to be put in place. By doing so, eventually, this becomes routine culture of the department to deal mainly with professional outside contractors instead of ordinary citizens. If possible, all building codes should be made available in some kind of booklet form to residents inside the office, for some reasonable fee, so that residents will be able to understand the decision-making process of the department.

2.) Consolidate all phases of the permit process in one place, at the same time. Both the architectural and the structural permit process should be handled simultaneously with the same hearing in order to accelerate the process.

3.) Coordinate all of the required steps that residents need to fulfill, harmoniously, without wasting anyone’s time. For instance, while I was wasting two months (February-April) at the kiray bate in order to fulfill the requirement of neighbors’ consent, the department could have easily gone through the blueprint review process simultaneously without waiting until the end of May to go over the blueprint. Quite simply, if Steps 1-3 need to be completed, there is no reason while I am working on Step 1, that Step 2 or 3 cannot be begun as well. In the Ethiopian bureaucratic culture, its most time consuming aspect is the notion that one has to do things step by step with no step being done simultaneously with another.

4.) Modify the consent of neighbors’ request procedure from the form. In principle, the whole idea of seeking neighbor consent is a proper procedure which has to be encouraged. What I mean by this is that in any project within a given neighborhood, neighbors’ input concerning its impact on something as simple as the traffic or more detrimental to the neighborhood such as illegal practices stemming from the construction should and must continue. Nonetheless, I completely defer to the department’s required procedures that are already at work. As it stands now, I am the one who must go and procure the needed assent; however, this could easily lead to my manipulating my neighbors in order to further my own ends, which might be illegal. Conversely, my neighbors and I might not be on the best of terms and they might take this opportunity to blackmail me and compel me not to proceed with the project. Thus, the balance between the need for neighborly input and my own self-interest is not able to reach any kind of equilibrium with the current procedure. So, the most appropriate and legal way, to the best of my knowledge, is once the department accepts the blueprint, having determined that the project is one that adheres to all existing building codes, it should then inform my neighbors through courier, at my own expense, that they could come at a given appointment time to air their views. In such a way, the department will be able to balance both one individual resident’s needs and the needs of the neighborhood as well. In other words, this procedure will definitely save incalculable amounts of time, frustration, and effort. Most of all, it will become a fair procedure.

5.) Raise the fee for the department construction permit to a very reasonable price. As it stands now, the department only charges 130 birr, an extremely small amount given the workload and the overall expectation of Addis Ababa that new development and growth will continue for the next decade. Not only this, but if we demand the most expeditious service from the department along with the highest consideration for the morale of the department’s employees, I would suggest that the department head or the city manager consider very seriously a reform in this area. From my experience, someone who has submitted to the construction permit process, with the goal of spending approximately 200,000-300,000 birr, should expect to pay roughly 1000-2000 birr for the permit. It is only logical that as the cost of the project increases, so too will the accompanying fee to the department. It is worth considering as a way of establishing an incentive based in the permit process whereby the department employees get some sort of commission from the revenue that they are able to secure for the department. This actually helps to close all loopholes of informal behaviors within the department. As a matter of fact, from discussions that I have had with fellow residents, who had business with this office, it has been suggested to me that the blueprints could have been done by the architects with the department or that they could have delegated this responsibility to their own contacts outside of the department. In my case, I paid 8000 birr to my contractors so that he could do the entire blueprint of my house. In a way, unknowingly, I probably put the department employees at a disadvantage by not utilizing them for this service which would have earned them extra money outside of their formal duties. Let me make this absolutely clear: there is a serious ethical violation when a public servant is both a regulator on behalf of the city and simultaneously a customer service provider. However, this can be remedied by rendering this process more open and transparent; as such, I am not against public servants securing other means of income within their profession. However, if this does happen, it needs to follow specific legal and ethical guidelines and these guidelines should be visible to the public. In short the department only charges 130 birr when informally and in actuality, a resident who is seeking such a permit might probably spend a much higher figure to accomplish his/her goal. In a way, the losers are always the government and the residents, so reverse the trend and incorporate this informal culture into formal and legal requirements.

6.) Establish a team working relationship between this department and other involved governmental agencies. First, acknowledge that a given department does not operate in isolation but that outside factors also determine its effectiveness and its efficiency. Next, identify where this department’s activities and requirements might fall in relation to those of other governmental agencies. Once this is accomplished, coordinate clear signals among the departments within as well as outside agencies so that it does not cause one’s efficiency to lag. Let me cite a good example: Lafto’s sub-city construction permit department (Room 36) requests me to get a consent form from my neighbors, who happened to be the federal kiray bate. However, shouldn’t it have been Ato Melaku Abera’s job, as team leader of this department, to have already established a working relationship between his department and Ato Abas Kedir, the director who was in charge of giving the consent on behalf of kiray bate, and who also happened to be the leader most directly involved in this endeavor? My situation of having kiray bate as a neighbor was not an isolated or unique occurrence but I assume is one that has been encountered many times before. If this is the case, it shouldn’t have taken me two weeks to discover where I was supposed to go, wasting my time in trudging to and from Mexico Kiray Bate and repeatedly bothering other renters as to where they paid their rent (which, incidentally, they didn’t know either). For God’s sake, the minimum that Ato Melaku Abera could have done is inform clients like me, on the form, that if kiray bate happened to be our neighbor, we had to go to the main kiray bate office in order to secure the necessary consent form from Ato Abas Kedir’s office.

7.) Department heads and team leaders should, as part of their job, grasp the overall mission of their department in conjunction with the overall policy of the city government and the way in which this policy relates to their overall work. It’s obvious that the construction permit department has a duty to make sure that residents who are seeking a construction permit comply with the department’s building codes. By the same token, the department also has a responsibility to diligently facilitate the desire of the city government’s strategic plan to encourage general economic growth within each community, such as house construction, building renovations, etc. The key here is the way in which the department can balance these two crucial and seemingly contradictory goals. From my experience, after more than four months of bureaucratic red tape, at the end of April, Ato Melaku Abera, who was the head of the Construction Permit Department, was seemingly only focused on permit codes, still raising issues on specific and minute details on the blueprint. As a team leader, it was also his responsibility to see the larger picture by questioning both the efficiency of his department or, why it took so long to finish this process, and the effectiveness of his department, meaning, questioning whether it was doing the right thing, by balancing the need for economic growth within his community, versus, regulating the code of construction permits. This is not an either-or issue but rather a complex melding together of the interests of the citizens, the interests of the city, and the interests of the community. In this regard, I couldn’t find a trace of the capacity to take on the mantle of such leadership in Ato Melaku. To say the least, from a mere human point of view, with such staggering rates of unemployment existing today in Addis Ababa, he and his administrative co-heads did not have the foresight to understand what is clear today: that in my modest endeavor, I am employing close to eighteen day laborers, earning 15-16 birr per day. I am also purchasing thousands of birr worth of building materials to finish the renovation. Thus, by zeroing in on minute details in the name of enforcing the code, one must never lose sight of the larger picture and ultimate goal of city development. As a matter of fact, in the initial phases of economic city development, leadership judgment should not be exclusively engaged in a dogmatic approach but instead, should see the larger picture. This should be the lesson learned.

It is necessary to note that the abovementioned suggestions and criticisms should not be directed solely at the civil servants within the city government but that the heads of Addis Ababa’s city management as well as sub-city managers also warrant the same kind of probing into their shortcomings. Otherwise, the entire effort on my part would be disingenuous and incomplete.

1.) Identify where the main serious problems lie. Within the ten sub-city governments, not all of their respective departments are ineffective, inefficient, and corrupt. It is up to the mayor and local city managers to identify exactly which department within each sub-city lies within this problematic domain. It is obvious that the majority of city residents interacts with the city government mainly in the areas of tax assessment, land, and construction permits, etc. As a matter of fact, there are very few departments that contribute to the overall corruption practiced by the city government and the ruined image that it now projects.

2.) Once one has identified these problematic departments, focus on these departments and establish a result-oriented evaluating system. The city can even, based on the gravity of the situation and the necessity for it, establish a mobile task force to raid these departments, spend enough time with them, review all procedures, regulations, and their respective missions and goals. If necessary, administer on-site training for all employees in question. There is a saying: if you see a pothole, fix it. It doesn’t need a workshop, strategic meeting, establishment of committees, and so on. This is why, upon reading an interview given by the mayor to the Reporter newspaper, in which he alluded to seeking outside help from courts and the federal government to tackle corruption within the city government, I beg to differ to his approach. I am not questioning the obvious need for cooperation from the federal government and the courts in combating corruption, what I am questioning however is why something that needs to be fixed right away isn’t just being fixed in the first place. So, city managers: go back and review all possible loopholes that already exist within each desk of each public servant of each department, review all of their files, and come up with lasting and reasonable procedures and regulations so that an opening for bribery and corruption is not created. Corruption cannot be eradicated completely, that we know as a fact, but it should and can be contained, and containment should start within the institution itself. In the first place, it will be an inner initiative, an active policy, as opposed to a reactive policy that seeks federal government and court help after the fact. Moreover, even though the intervention of the court is necessary and might probably have a deterrence factor, nonetheless, it also has a negative collective demoralization factor to all public servants, as a result of the lack of internal reform. Establish an expectation from each department and each public servant for identifiable and measurable output results. When these results are reviewed, do not simply look at the number of cases that each individual has but rather at the quality of his/her cases. Without identifying and finding a solution from inside, calling for outside help is tantamount to calling for the police and the court to protect you from robbery while you yourself have failed to properly secure your house by locking the door!

3.) Consider an incentive-based reward system within the workforce. At no time in visiting various departments, have I noticed a system of acknowledging particularly outstanding workers, to their colleagues as well as to visiting residents in the form of certificates, headlines, bulletins, or even the displaying of their pictures and names in every office of the department that I was visiting at the time. I would hope and it is quite certain that there are hard-working individuals within each department, individuals who deserve to be noticed and encouraged by their superiors as well as residents like us who happen to have business with the city government. I wonder how city managers expect to receive maximum efficiency and effectiveness from the city government workers in the absence of such a glaring and basic system of standard of acknowledgment. As of writing this paper, I was delighted and encouraged to see a rewards system being implemented for the public servants who were involved in the completion of the new condominiums, for the residents.

4.) It is also worthwhile to consider giving a tax break to working public servants if an increase in their income is not feasible at this time. It is worth noting that for local governments (or for that matter, even for the federal government), to run the most efficient and effective institutions, the public servants who serve at the frontline within these institutions must be taken care of financially, to a reasonable degree. No amount of strategic meeting, planning, and goals can reap fruit with a demoralized and neglected workforce at the helm.

	Bole Sub-City (1996)	Bole Sub-City (1997)	Bole Sub-City (1998)
Total Budget Revenue	138,690,267	201,018,670.62	315,009,089.67
Total Direct Tax Revenue	76,060,009	114,176,046.90	126,017,533.39
(1101) Wage Taxes	46,719,163	58,710,104.00	78,643,868.44
(1102) Rental Income Tax	8,927,625	13,792,987.50	2,240,824.84
Municipality Tax[1][1]
(1701) Property	Unavailable	4,578, 711.90	3,344, 296.21
	Nefas Silk-Lafto Sub-City (1996)`	Nefas Silk-Lafto Sub-City (1997)	Nefas Silk-Lafto Sub-City (1998)
Total Budget Revenue	87,926,830.03	135,771,189.41	160,395,776.10
Total Direct Tax Revenue	Unavailable	68,869,809.93	58,396,714.09
(1101) Wage Taxes	25,584,814.37	29,853,135.21	39,180,436.49
(1102) Rental Income Tax	5,542, 016.34	8,983, 863.94	919, 096.23
Municipality Tax
(1701) Property	2,228,709.78	3,294,386.69	1,570,804.10

Budget, in general, is a statement, as opposed to being simply figures where one can clearly see where government is getting its money and where it’s planning to spend it. As such, one can clearly see government’s commitment, its values, and its principles. If the above premise holds true, then when one closely observes the above chart, which mainly focuses on revenue generated to the sub-city governments in Bole and Nefas-Silk Lafto, it becomes clear that the bulk of these two wealthy sub-cities’ direct revenue comes from Wage Taxes. In fact, year to year, this tax has steadily increased in both sub-cities. But thanks to the 2005 election (Ethiopian Calendar: 1997), one can also see clearly that the rental income of the sub-cities has dramatically decreased. In Bole, this rental revenue took a plunge downward from more than 13 million in 1997 to a little more than 2 million in 1998. In Nefas-Silk Lafto, the decline was from more than 8 million in 1997 to less than a million in 1998. Municipality taxes, or what I call the Property Tax in the chart, showed the same disheartening trend. In a way, hard-working city government employees are shouldering most of the burden while property owners (both residential and commercial) are getting a massive tax break. Since this is not the focus of this paper, but is a subject which I am interested in further researching in the future, in principle while I am in favor of eradicating the whole notion of a rental income, I am a strong supporter of the idea that the property tax should take the bulk of the city government’s revenue in order to have a sustainable financial foundation for the city. I do acknowledge that at present, property taxes might not be able to form a broad enough tax base, but given the growth that we see in both private and commercial buildings, it is not a issue of how but of when to start this. So the time has come to begin the incremental phase-in of allowing property taxes to play this role and simultaneously, if possible, easing off the tax burden on working government employees. What particularly interested me, listening to the debate between the Prime Minister and the young opposition member in the Parliament, Ato Lidetu, in regards to this issue, was the fact that the Prime Minister consistently attempted to relay the message that we should put into consideration the negative impact that a raise in government employees’ income would have on the already inflationary economic situation. This is not my area, not being an economist, but I can assure the Prime Minister also that raising the government employees’ income or reconsidering their tax cut, has a strong linkage between the government’s desire for accelerating economic growth and the capacity that the governmental institutions have to accelerate this growth. In a way, the government institutions are seriously lacking or are undermining the government’s ambition for economic advancement in the city. However, this reform of tax breaks or increase in income for government employees, should only come about after institutional reform has taken place within the city government.

5.) City managers must exercise their leadership qualities as liaisons with, and spokesmen for the community. City managers must be able to identify all the resources within the community and are not simply in charge of running city government. Budget limitations and financial constraints notwithstanding, city managers should be creative enough to work within the community to solicit all types of resources in order to create the most vibrant institutions possible. For instance, taking Lafto Nefas-Silk Sub-City as an example, at a time of the urban beautification program, which included such projects as laying down the sidewalk at the main Bole Road, it is saddening to note that the main Lafto Nefas-Silk Sub-City building doesn’t even have a proper sidewalk in front of it. I can’t imagine how located as it is in one of the wealthiest sub-cities in Addis Ababa and also sitting on a revenue budget of 160,395,776.10 birr, this isn’t by itself an exemplar or an institution that is initiating a partnership between civic participation and city government. There are well-to-do business people within the community who could help engineer such an endeavor, if it is necessary, with initiation, motivation, and acknowledgement coming from the city government. And finally, for God’s sake, we are on the verge of the 21^st century, about to celebrate our millennium, I beg you to immediately consider placing photocopy machines in your Land Administration department (Room 38) so that residents feel that they are entitled to have a form presented to them when they do business with this department.

In any evaluation of the city government in Addis Ababa, all setbacks and shortcomings cannot be attributed solely to city government because the federal government also has a major role to play. The reason behind this is that within the city, all essential service providers and institutions such as telecommunications, water, and electricity are run by the federal government. Some of the major projects in roads, housing, etc. are not done solely by the city administration but require a partnership with the federal government. As a matter of fact, kebeles and woredas are still actually governed by candidates close to the EPRDF organization. In this regard, appropriate criticism should be directed at EPRDF leaders in Addis Ababa. One might ask, what exactly can EPRDF do?

In the first place, EPRDF needs to reverse the perception, which has been rightly or wrongly, perpetuated among the average city residents, that after the election of 2005, much like Pontius Pilate who washed his hands both metaphorically and literally right before the sentencing of Jesus Christ, EPRDF too washed its hands of the situation and gave over the outstanding problems to the Addis Ababa Caretaker Government. What EPRDF leaders fail to understand in this regard is that for ordinary Addis Ababa residents, the Ethiopian constitution, any federal statute from the Parliament, and any major policies promulgated from Addis Ababa city government, even though they have validity or play roles in the lives of these residents, remain abstract to these same residents because they rarely impact their day-to-day quality of life. As a matter of fact, local residents don’t usually make a distinction between the daily hindrances posed by local government institutions and the role of the federal government. So, what matters most for most residents on a daily basis are the directives from kebeles and woredas, rules and regulations from the sub-cities or for that matter, a simple transaction like paying their phone, water, and electricity bills or being continually asked for receipts from previous months in order to pay their monthly fees. It might even take three to four months for their utilities to be restored or even connected. If you happen to be a taxi driver or a mini bus driver, or for that matter an average motorist, you are sure to be daily harassed by traffic police who are there simply to earn their daily bribery income. If you take the moral high ground and accept the violation ticket, it will be you who ends up waiting in lines at the Megananga 22 office, waiting for four or five hours, simply to pay your violation ticket. These are the kinds of issues, which have the potential to derail their daily quality of life, that most residents are emotionally attached to and it is also out of these issues that their initial opinions are developed and ultimately, their resentment against the government is born. The irony of this is that even this resentment is not fairly allocated to the so-called rightful parties by the residents but is instead heaped entirely on EPRDF’s head. It is here that I must pause and wonder if EPRDF leaders in Addis Ababa really understand the psyches and the societal frustrations that city residents face on a daily basis and understand the consequences of having their collective resentment directed at EPRDF management. So, EPRDF needs to understand that the stakes are high in this regard. I have full confidence that you do have a strong knowledge and understanding of the lives in the countryside, mainly the peasants, but I highly doubt that this knowledge and understanding extends to the urban centers. Don’t get me wrong, I say this not to be a populist demagogue manipulating an already established sentiment within the city that the EPRDF government is not giving enough attention to urban centers, and that there is a deep desire to punish the urban population in general, but sincerely believing that you have no idea how city residents live. In other words, even though you reside in Addis, you are actually not living as a city resident in Addis. You don’t visit sub-city offices to pay your taxes or to carry out any transactions because you live in a government-owned building. You don’t suffer like the city residents, you don’t have to stand in line to pay telephone bills or water bills to experience what dehumanizing encounters within these institutions they truly are. You don’t use minibuses or taxis to go from one place to another, never mind during heavy traffic times. Again, I’m not suggesting that EPRDF leaders must go through this and I fully understand that at the very least, there are security issues involved. What I am suggesting to you is that you are not able to discover or at least receive the real and unfiltered experiences that the average person in Addis Ababa goes through. You are shielded, deceived, and misinformed by your local so-called government officials. Even when you attempt to gain access into their mindset through mediums like the recent local meetings you organized to receive feedback, I wonder how authentic and genuine this feedback can be since it is orchestrated and organized by the local political appointees themselves. Conventional wisdom within the city, both in formal and informal discussions that I have heard, repeatedly dictates that the shortcoming of the city administration is because of the inundation of the city with EPRDF cadres. However, I take the opposing view and think that what we would call in modern terms, political appointees as opposed to cadres, are a given and appropriate. In fact, based on my experience and observations, my argument is that EPRDF doesn’t have enough dedicated cadres or political appointees in the city government who share the leadership’s vision and values, and this is the pervading problem within the city. In short, this is why the change must come about from below in order to uproot this oppressive culture: recruit enough local managers in kebeles and sub-cities to take the torch forward.