Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has lashed out at aid donors, accusing them of manipulating his country’s food crisis and failing to deliver on pledges of assistance.
Televised live Saturday on state media, the Ethiopian premier while defending the president’s speech, used harsh words for what he called the ‘food aid industry’. Mr. Zenawi accused Foreign donors of deliberately exaggerating the number of Ethiopians starved , manipulating the food crises to their own benefit. “They get some rent for it," the premier noted. "It is to their benefit and their advantage. They are selling their food where food is scarce".
Ethiopian government estimates 6.2-million people are in need emergency food aid within the next few months. Whereas aid donors have increased the figure to over 13 million people .But the government has defended that safety net beneficiaries should be treated differently.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi says aid agencies and donor governments are aggravating the problem for their own hidden agendas."Those people have their own ideological economic and political interests", he said.
Mr. Zenawi added that during his last 18 years of rule , the aid donors had consistently provided much less than what is needed. “We have never been given more than 60 percent of the aid we required,” the prime minister said.
The country has been hard hid by recurrent drought almost every five years ; consequently some 6 millions have been seriously affected every year.