The Blue Nile is an everlasting bond between riparian countries. For millennia, the river amassed water from upper riparian countries and provided Sudan and Egypt a life line. It has, however, been the Egyptians who relied heavily on the longest river in the world. The Greeks even called Egypt “the Gift of the Nile.” Considering Ethiopia contributes 85Pct of the Nile waters, it would be logical to say that ‘Egypt is the gift of Ethiopia.’ Despite its tremendous share of the Nile waters, Ethiopia has never used the river. On the other hand, Egypt does not contribute a drop to the river; however, it claims to have historic use rights that should not been questioned.

Ethiopia is currently undertaking a partial privatization of ethio telecom. The plan of the government is to maintain 55Pct of the stake while selling 40Pct of the company to a global telecom operator. It aims to sell the remaining 5Pct to the general public. The government has also expressed its intention to license two private telecom operators. Accordingly, 12 foreign multinational telecom operators have expressed interest for both opportunities.

With the spread of the coronavirus across the globe, no one seems to be certain about the future. While the scope of the virus is widening alarmingly every second, the number of infected people and the death toll is skyrocketing with no end in sight. Countries with better health infrastructure, like the US and Europe, have been stretched beyond capacity.

Frequent power outages and no running water for days are part of normal life in Ethiopia. The state of public transport has worsened in big cities like Addis Ababa while it is nearly non-existent in small towns. Citizens still have to wait in long queues for hours to access public service that does not come cheap anymore.

The agricultural sector has always been labelled as the backbone of the economy for the last three successive regimes in Ethiopia, albeit being denied of the deserving attention. Despite employing close to three-fourths of the country’s workforce, the sector has been at the receiving end of disservice by the political elite who consistently claim to have modernized it. The EPRDF administration has acknowledged that the agricultural sector is the launching pad to industrialization.

In modern economies, keeping tax rates at reasonable levels is uncompromised, because of its significance in promoting the development of the private sector, creation of a transparent economy, and the formalization of businesses. The reality is different in Ethiopia. Tax is usually misunderstood as an instrument to increase government revenues, even at the expense of businesses’ survival, with the latest being the excise tax bill introduced by the government last month.