Sanctions: PFDJ’s Excuse for Incompetence (Part I)

Sanctions: PFDJ’s Excuse for Incompetence (Part I)

By Bana Fithi from Asmara

The PFDJ is trumpeting the latest resolution of the UN Security Council (Resolution 2023) with all its might. In the PFDJ’s rhetoric, the resolution represents a carry-over of colonial-period conspiracy by the International Community (again in the PFDJ’s parlance, the United States). Consequently, the PFDJ has chosen to deluge its people with daily news and propaganda on sanctions without disclosing the nitty-gritty of the sanctions. Such a practice only risks wrecking the morale of the public. PFDJ’s publicity of the sanctions will prove to be more damaging to the people than the sanctions themselves. For one, the minds of the Eritrean people have been made captive to non-existent foreign hostilities. These same minds are being maneuvered to think in ‘we the victim and the whole world the culprit’ mentality. As far as sanctions are concerned, the PFDJ media outlets are also hooked to the unbelievable tone that there is an advantage to be gained by sanctions. According to this narrative, the advantage is the added resoluteness and determination for development drive that sanctions will provide in the Eritrean context. This will mean more sanctions have to be exerted on the nation so that Eritrea will come out shining in spite of the crippling effect of sanctions. If this line were anything to go by, the last two years since the 2009 sanctions and the growing uncertainty and lethargy that have permeated the country wouldn’t help PFDJ’s game. If there has been development, why would the president’s old working papers keep on being repeated in every cabinet meeting without getting implemented? But in the PFDJ’s twisted logic, for a people to develop the effort has to be more on inviting tougher sanctions than on having the existing ones lifted. That is what the PFDJ is shamelessly airing on its media. Who knows the PFDJ might deliberately have courted the sanctions since day one so that it would at the end of the day fault the International Community for its own failures.

Clearly, the PFDJ propaganda of defiance and uncompromising stance in the face of sanctions is not aimed at the Security Council. It is meant to deafen the Eritrean public. Not surprisingly, PFDJ’s media solicit opinions from some Eritreans, mostly those in the Diaspora who have heartlessly become PFDJ’s instruments in tightening the totalitarian grip on the people inside the country who are the guinea pigs of successive PFDJ experiments. As expected, the people inside the country cannot sound passionate enough in their stance for PFDJ’s propaganda for they continue to bear the brunt of the misery caused thanks to the PFDJ’s recklessness and economic mismanagement. The people only want to see real changes in their daily lives which any answerable government would be expected to deliver. But instead of addressing the myriad economic, social, political and psychological problems, the PFDJ has opted for another round of campaign against so-called foreign antagonists. It is business as usual. To the PFDJ, a blessing has come in the disguise of sanctions (resolution) by the UN Security Council to twist the occasion for its own ends. Instead of addressing the wretched economic conditions people across the country are experiencing, the PFDJ knows it is presented with an opportunity to renege further on its social contract (Of course the PFDJ has been ignorant of its social contract as it has confirmed through the lips of its chairman, president Isaias, during an interview with VOA in September in which the chairman made it clear that he knows of no public contract vested in him).

I say the latest decision by the UN Security Council is being used by the PFDJ as an excuse to cover up its incompetence to govern our small starving nation based on the objective situation. What do realities inside the country tell in the economic, political and social fields? If we turn to the economic front, although the Government is not accustomed to releasing data on economic parameters such as inflation and consumer price index, the harsh living realities speak volumes in themselves in the absence of official economic statistics.

1.    Food scarcity and unaffordable prices: Before taking up the subject of food scarcity in Eritrea, I find it appropriate to define Food Security, which has lately been a much touted but misused conception on the part of the PFDJ. To shed light on this issue of critical importance, I have made recourse to a document published by the Eritrean government itself in April 2004. This document entitled ‘Food Security Strategy’ defines the concept of food security as follows: “Food Security is access by all people at all times to adequate nutritious food to lead a healthy and productive life”. The same document goes on to make its case: “Food Security has two dimensions, national food security strategy and household food security strategy. An effective food security strategy will ensure: National Food Security where food is available in markets throughout the country from domestic production, commercial imports, or food assistance; and Household Food Security where all household members have affordable access at all times to the food they need for a healthy life”.

The Eritrean Government was not the first to coin the concept of food security. It simply borrowed the idea from the reservoir of mainstream knowledge. We find the above exposition by the Eritrean Government on food security to tally with how the World Food Summit in Rome in 1996 defined Food Security. According to the World Food Summit, Food Security is said to exist “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”.

Based on the above salient points on Food Security, is food in Eritrea sufficiently available, accessible and nutritionally beneficial? If we start with grain food, the prices of grains have long gone out of hand for the overwhelming majority of the Eritrean people, including the should-be producers (farmers). This year farmers, except in a handful of localities, have ended up with meager harvests after months of back-breaking labor and anxious waiting. To a large degree, last year’s rainy season was better than this year’s. But the agriculture sector in Eritrea being as backward and vulnerable as it is, even in the best of times (without drought and other predicaments such as pests), cannot satisfy more than half of the food demands of the Eritrean population (this fact is born out in the above dossier and other documents by the Eritrean Government).

The low productivity leaves the general consumers to jostle for the small produce in the market at dizzying prices, which only the superrich can afford (remember the PFDJ mantra of being against the gap between the haves and have-nots). The PFDJ sorghum distribution in the capital Asmara has only managed to scratch the surface of the grain crisis. If we take the cereal prices in Asmara:

These cereal prices happen to be ridiculously high in a country where the maximum government salary (that of the Head of State) is 5,000.00 Nfas; a medical doctor’s monthly pay is 2,200.00 Nfas; the salary that accrues to a Bachelor’s degree holder is 1,500.00 Nfas (exactly equivalent to a hundred USD) and that of a Master’s graduate is 1,800.00 Nfas.

This disparity between earnings and market prices proves in no uncertain terms that even if sufficient stocks of grains were available for every consumer, they would not be affordable at their current prices and hence would remain inaccessible. In other words, the high price of cereals exposes their scarcity in the Eritrean economy.

2.    Vegetables, food stuffs and other consumables: If we again take the markets in Asmara, where the majority of consumers live and to which the bulk of food produce is shipped, the prices look like as below:

To buy a unit of each of the above essentials a week (taking only one of the energy costs; without including meat which is for many a delicacy; keeping out fish which is  hard to find and without considering other nutrients), a breadwinner would need 2,400 Nfas a month. If the cost of cereal grain is added to this, definitely the living cost attains astronomical levels.

This amount is of course without paying attention to the quality of food, which determines the daily calorie supply of a person, in which case a far more wholesome basket of food is needed. A person requires a minimum of 2000 calories a day as stipulated in the Government of Eritrea document cited above (although our presumptuous president told us in an interview in January 2009 that we can live on 500 calories a day, clearly contradicting his own Government’s assertion and scientific knowledge. Let’s remember that scientifically at 1,500 calories a person begins to lose weight). Anyway, going on with our calculation the foodstuffs make up 50% of the president’s salary, 70% of Army General’s wages and 100% of a medical doctor’s income. And in terms of the wages of a National Service Conscript? The highest paid National Service conscript receives 500 Nfas in stipend every month. The foodstuff prices would eat up more than 400% of this stipend. These rough figures are without adding up the cereal prices, housing, utilities, clothing and other costs. Where are the extra funds over and above the salaries being obtained? The answer to this question betrays the level of corruption being fostered in PFDJ’s Eritrea followed by destitution and culture of dependency that have been given free rein. The issue of corruption in Eritrea makes a very interesting subject and deserves a much broader treatment. However by way of reminder, corruption has become an epidemic which people encounter everyday at institutions ranging from hospitals and Government offices to schools, the Police and Justice Systems. Two simple examples: a parent has to offer sweetener to school authorities to have a child enrolled in school; one has also to pay a bribe to secure a line for medical service at a health clinic (Mind you there are no private clinics; only government owned clinics operate).

{jcomments off}