Postby abwaan1 » Sun Apr 22, 2007 10:06 pm
Further Signs Of Eritrea's Collapsing Economy
By Awate.com's Gedab News - Apr 18, 2007
The businesses owned by Eritrea’s senior military officers, who have been in the contraband business since 2002, have managed to have Teseney declared a “free trade zone.†Teseney is a border town, in Western Eritrea, bordering Sudan.
The declaration of the free trade zone effectively legalizes the military officers’ contraband business.
Meanwhile, the Eritrean regime has started to monitor and control the distribution of coupons to NGOs and the remnants of the private sector. The military is stopping trucks and asking the drivers how they got their diesel and if they are not able to demonstrate proof of purchase, they are being fined 2nkfa per quintal of load. Residents expect further restrictions on the distribution of diesel fuel.
In related news, the so-called rit’awi dukan [fair shop], a party-owned co-operative that was set up to combat the alleged speculative and predatory private market, is failing in its one sole task: to provide basic commodities like Taf, lentil and oil. Bread is still being sold via coupons in neighborhood shops with long queues.
As reported in an earlier edition of Gedab News, the first stages of the hard currency shortage have impacted Asmara Brewery. The bars in Asmara have been instructed to delay serving beer until 7:00 PM local time.
Background
Since April 2003, Eritrea’s private sector has been under duress and has virtually ceased to exist when the government came up with increasingly onerous requirements to renew business licenses and restricted the provision of hard currency required for imports and demanded evidence that the businessperson's entire family is "meeting its obligations" in 2005. Almost all private businessmen have migrated to neighboring Sudan, Kenya and Uganda and the few remaining are under surveillance and occasionally arrested for alleged crimes of illicit currency exchanges.
Eritrea’s private sector is now a competition between para-statals: the party-owned Red Sea Trading Corporation (RSTC); the businesses owned by party-controlled “mass organizations†such as National Union of Eritrean Youth & Students (NUEYS) and National Union of Eritrean Women (NUEW) and, finally, the businesses owned by the generals commanding the operations command.
The generals own the transportation business (Harat), hospitality centers at Sawa, plantations (such as Sawa and Af-himbol) and fisheries.
