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May 23 , 2026

Tax Push Tests How Much Pain Taxpayers Can Bear

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team has spent weeks in Addis Abeba conducting the fifth review of the macroeconomic reform programme it backs in Ethiopia. Its checklist would be familiar and hard. Its experts demand to see a fuller floating of the Birr in the foreign-exchange market, a phas...

May 16 , 2026

T-Bills Trap Begins in the Federal Government's Own Budget

The federal budget tells a troubling story about inflation, debt and reform. The problem is not only that the state is short of money. It appears to be struggling to control the money it has. The books show a system that spends too little where policy needs delivery, too much where limits should bind, and hides too much under labels that tell the public little. By the third quarter of 2024/25, federal expenditure had reached 697.7 billion Br, 46.8pc of an adjusted budget of 1.49 trillion Br. By the fourth quarter, spending climbed to 1.097 trillion Br, but execution was 58.2pc. Almost 789 b...


May 9 , 2026

Every Encounter with the State Should Not Become an Invoice

The Ethiopian state appears to have discovered a fiscal instrument that is politically convenient and administratively tempting yet economically burdensome for its citizens. It has gotten itself into an addiction where mandatory contributions behave like a tax while avoiding the name. Take the latest cybersecurity bill before federal lawmakers, one of a series in the legislative grail, which would extend this model to owners of critical infrastructure, requiring them to finance the protection of systems deemed vital to the economy, national security, and public order. The bill follows a gro...


May 2 , 2026

National Dialogue Has Everything But the Trust It Needs

By the time Ethiopia's National Dialogue Commission (ENDC) reached the end of its first three-year mandate, the country had gathered everything a dialogue needs, except for the one thing it cannot do without. Trust. There were commissioners, facilitators, procedures, regional consultations, agenda papers and the language of reconciliation. There were also militarised conflicts in Amhara and Oromia regional states, a traumatised Tigray Regional State, a cowed media, a Parliament held by the ruling Prosperity Party (PP), and a state whose monopoly on legitimate violence is contested. This...

Editorials

Apr 25 , 2026

Addis Abeba's Roads Reveal a Country Where the Powerful Drive Through the Law

In a political community, official speeches show what governments want their citizens to see. But a country can be read through its roads, where streets show what citizens live with. In Addis Abeba...

Ethiopia's New Diplomacy Essence Could Be About Shielding Sovereignty

For much of the past three decades, Ethiopia occupied a familiar place in the Western imagination. It was a security partner in a combustible region, the Horn of Africa, a development darling with chr...

Voters' Registration Drive Risks Eroding Public Trust

The electoral process is again inviting uncomfortable questions, not about logistics, but about procedure, principle and trust. What ought to be a routine civic exercise is increasingly viewed with su...

Apr 4 , 2026

Drivers Stranded Between Parched Pumps and Policy Pipe Dream

Fuel stations across the country, especially in Addis Abeba, have become the stage for a grim new ritual. Lines of vehicles now stretch for as long as two and a half kilometres. Motorists spend ent...

Mar 28 , 2026

The Economy Grows on Paper as Tomorrow's Assets Go Unbuilt

The most alarming economic losses are often the hardest to see. A bridge destroyed by war is visible, not a factory closed down by foreign-exchange shortages. The machinery not imported, the warehouse...

Mar 21 , 2026

Banking Boom Conceals a Deeper Concentration, Risk Reordering

In its latest financial stability report, the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), for the third in a row, declared the country's financial system “stable, resilient, and low risk”. However, the ed...

Mar 14 , 2026

The State Wants Cash. Taxpayers Need Oxygen

Policymakers have pulled off a remarkable feat. They have found a way to demand more cash from taxpayers precisely when businesses have the least room to breathe. Taken one by one, each of the gove...

Mar 7 , 2026

Education Policy Overhaul Inadequate in Deliberation, Fleeting in Effect

Berhanu Nega, a university professor-cum-opposition leader, is attempting one of the most sweeping overhauls the education sector has seen in decades. University financing, teacher training, curriculu...

Feb 28 , 2026

National Interest, Grand Narrative With a New Hobby of Sanctioning the Media

Regulators sent a chill through the local newsrooms last week when they yanked the registration of Addis Standard, one of the country's most popular online outlets, for allegedly “dissiminating repo...

Feb 21 , 2026

Young Voters Logged In, Tuned Out

The next general election, pencilled in for June 2026, remains distant, yet among its plugged-in youth a quiet verdict is forming. A digital poll of 142 respondents, mostly aged 22 to 30, conducted...

Feb 14 , 2026

Can a War-Scarred Federation Turn a Crisis Election into a Reset Moment?

Nearly 50 countries will hold national elections this year. In more than 20, the campaign trail runs between sandbags, with voters expected to queue while rifles glare. Ethiopia is one of the latter....

Feb 7 , 2026

Gold Boom Buoys Exports But Erodes Central Bank's Stability

Ethiopia's new love affair with gold looks, at first glance, like an economic fairy tale. For a country starved of hard currency, mired in arrears and stuck in debt talks under the G20's Common Fra...

Jan 31 , 2026

Ethiopia Aid a Nobel Idea Until Shiferaw Thinks About Its Financing

Shiferaw Teklemariam (PhD), czar of the federal relief operations, is wrestling with a problem that is growing faster than the country's patience, its fiscal space and, increasingly, its foreign frien...

Ethiopia Inc Drives Consolidation While Liberalisation Remains Tightly Managed

From a distance, Ethiopia looks like a country finally prising open its economy. Licences for mobile operators have been sold, a capital-market law passed, foreign banks invited, subsidies pared, and...

Jan 17 , 2026

US Support to Ethiopia's Health Sector Should Not Become a Data Giveaway

Two East African capitals have reacted differently to America's latest offer to pour billions of dollars into their respective public health sector. In Nairobi, under William Ruto's (PhD) governmen...

Jan 10 , 2026

Governor Eyob Ends Deposit-Rate Floors Restoring Policy Credibility

The National Bank of Ethiopia's (NBE) decision, two weeks ago, to scrap the seven percent statutory minimum on deposit rates was celebrated by free-market enthusiasts and lamented by dirigistes. Ho...


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Tax Push Tests How Much Pain Taxpayers Can Bear


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Tax Push Tests How Much Pain Taxpayers Can Bear

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team has spent weeks in Addis Abeba conducting the fi...

Editorial | May 23 , 2026

Betrothal Ritual Falls Prey to the Event Economy

When Abigiya Tewodros sat for her traditional bethrothal intercession, locally known as "S...

Featured | May 17 , 2026 . By HELINA HADGU

When Bread Becomes Too Costly for Breakfast

For Helen Mekonnen, 45, bread has become the measure of how far a household income can str...

Agenda | May 23 , 2026 . By HELINA HADGU

ADDIS ABEBA Tries to Redraw Its Future Without Awakening Old Ghosts

Addis Abeba's most contested planning document is entering its final year, carrying the le...

Fortune News | May 23 , 2026 . By NAHOM AYELE