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Branna
Birth of Red Sea Corporation’s retail subsidiary
On March 1, 2005, Awate’s Gedab News reported the suspension of import permits to private businesses in Eritrea. The report indicated that this measure completes the PFDJ’s domination of external trade and predicted, citing preparations currently underway, an imminent return to state-run retail shops that were a fixture of the Dergue era. (Remember ‘hebret suk’ shops that were run under the Ethiopian Domestic Distribution Corporation – EDDC?). Well, we didn’t have to wait long to see it happen. The establishment of Hidri Distribution Co., the government’s corporation now in charge of retail trading, has been announced in the government media on March 4. (See Haddas Ertra, March 4; and an interview on government radio the same day.) According to these announcements, the newly-formed offshoot of the Red Sea Corporation will open 50 shops in Asmara only. More shops will follow all over the country. These developments come at the height of a hostile campaign against the private sector, blaming the-already-incapacitated business community for every evil the country is suffering. Night-long queues
Eritrea’s business environment is presently going through its most depressed times. Denied their very basic activity, many businesses have relinquished their licenses, while others have left the country for good. Consumer goods are hard to come by and long queues have become a daily spectacle everywhere. You just have to pass by the Elabered Estate distribution center near Asmara Bowling Club, to get a glimpse of the serpentine lines formed by Asmara’s residents trying their luck at landing a liter of milk. It is not unusual for the lines to be stretched as far as the new fuel station past mai timket. The queues start forming around 4 to 5 in the morning before the shops open at about 7:30. As for taff, our adetat take their positions the night before. “Hey, give me my gabi and don’t forget to wake up the kids in the morning. I am off to get in line before too many people show up!” Ministry of Foreign Affairs or ‘enda klte afu’[1]? More interestingly, government offices as well have turned themselves into distribution centers of consumer goods. You would turn up at some ministry these days and chances are you would find people busy shuttling between rooms, or rushing through corridors and stairs, their hands full with boxes of pasta and bottles of cooking oil, not files and paper. Expect to find the person you came to see on official business busy reading from a long list of names and trying to figure out who had ordered two kilos of Pakistani rice and who took three extra packets of Kenyan blended tea. And yes, there she is - the Minister’s secretary – absorbed in her newfound task: carefully filling a mlelikh from an open sack of lentils (ades) and spilling the contents into a scale. And here is the public relations guy stacking gallons of cooking oil on a desk, while one of his colleagues unpacks cans of tomato paste. These new functions have become so central to the work of any ministry’s staff that committees have been formed full with supply officers, bado tish’ate (Red Sea Corp) liaison officers, storekeepers, transport officers and cashiers. Sophisticated schedules are drawn up and lists prepared. And, in place of work related messages, the notice boards nowadays are filled with notices announcing the arrival of macaroni or shyly informing the frustrated employees that the long-awaited sugar would not, yet again, be among this month’s merchandise. (I think it is fair to claim that Eritrea’s case qualifies as a unique case study on how the failure of an economy fashions the functioning and structures of public institutions). Well, I have to leave you here … it is time to look for a few liters of gasoline, or the kids won’t be able to prepare for their exams. (Or maybe, it’s not worth it. Why the rush? Let them take their time!). But I need the gasoline anyway, or we may not have dinner. Good night! And welcome to the promised Singapore!
[1] ‘enda klte afu’ is a famous consumer goods store in Asmara’s old market
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