Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Ethiopia’s $23 billion foreign debt six years ago has now been slashed to $4.5 billion after successful rescheduling.
“The economy is growing without foreign loans,” Ahmed declared. “We have built a system that stands on Ethiopia’s own capacity,” said Ahmed while addressing the House of People’s Representatives, the lower chamber of the parliament on Tuesday.
Ahmed delivered a sweeping defence of his administration’s economic reform programme, portraying Ethiopia as a country that has turned the corner after years of crisis.
The prime minister said his government had spent 440 billion birr in subsidies to “stabilise inflation,” which had fallen to 11.7 percent — the lowest level since his reform agenda began.
The bulk of that spending, he said, went to fuel, fertiliser and public sector salaries. “We have used every possible instrument to ease the cost of living,” he told lawmakers, crediting school feeding programmes and monetary tightening for the slowdown in price rises.
He went on to hail what he called the “success” of the Homegrown Economic Reform, launched in 2019 to repair macroeconomic imbalances and modernise the economy.
According to the premier, Ethiopia’s revenue, which stood at 170 billion birr when the reform began, is projected to reach 1 trillion birr this year. He said Ethiopia’s economy is anticipated to register a double digit economic growth.
Yet critics saw a familiar pattern in Ahmed’s address — a broad-brush celebration of economic figures with little detail on how growth is distributed or how rising debt service costs are affecting ordinary households.
Inflation may be slowing, analysts note, but food and rent prices remain high, and government wage increases have been partly offset by soaring urban living costs.
MG/as/APA