Rotating the Governance of the
Capital City of the Zones in the Regional State of
Tigray: Restoring
the Promise of Democratic Autonomy
Desta, Asayehgn,
Sarlo Distinguished Professor of Sustainable
Economic Development
“Proactive
planning for the inevitable trend is wisdom of the
highest level”
(Yohannes Aberra Ayele, (March 27,
2019)
After
more than two decades of remarkable economic
achievement, it is discouraging to notice that
currently Ethiopia is undergoing major social
upheavals and economic crises. As
MacDiarmid
(September 12, 2018) aptly states, around
mid- 2018, more than 2.6 million Ethiopians were
displaced. Sadly, these Ethiopians now occupy
downtrodden shelters, churches, and depleted
homes. Unless this humanitarian disaster is soon
addressed, MacDiarmid argues, life for these
Ethiopians in transit could soon resemble the
deplorable conditions in the world’s worst
settings, such as Syria, Afghanistan and the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Far
from being contained, the crisis is spreading and
creating a ripple effect in so-called
“peaceful” regions of Ethiopia. Except for
some intermittent ethnic skirmishes in the Welkate
and Raya districts, the Regional State of Tigray
has been entertaining peace and stability over the
past several years. Recently, however, a handful
of residents of the Mekelle Special Zone have
challenged the Government of Tigray (TOG), arguing
it cannot continue to police the Mekelle Special
Zone with die-hard zealots recruited mainly from
the Central Zone of Tigray. In what would sound
like an ultimatum, the agitators have demanded
restructuring of the Regional State of Tigray to
accommodate the disenfranchised. Otherwise, they
strongly insist, “Once such civil disorder
unfolds due to the
removal and replacement of people illegally, it is
impossible to contain or control such upheavals by
any form of force” (Hishe 2019).
Meanwhile,
scholars have also shown concern about the
over-expansion of the City of Mekelle. While
appreciating the Tigray Liberation Front’s (TLF)
efforts to rekindle and achieve high-level
political and economic functions in Mekelle City,
Ayele ((March 2019) argues that since the TPLF-led
government of Tigray concentrated its attention on
the Capital of the region in terms of investment
and service provisions, the Mekelle City has
neglected and, as a result, detached several
outlying regional urban centers from the main body
of the Tigray Regional State.
From
a radical perspective, Tessema (Feb,24, 2019)
argues that the Government of Tigray (GOT) has
created a travesty of justice for the residents of
Mekelle and Enderta. Thus, Tessema feels the
TOG’s rampant land grabbing has not only
infringed on property rights and endangered food
security but has also caused the residents of the
Mekelle and Enderta to suffer from industrial
pollution and environmental degradation.
Instead
of sweeping these concerns under the rug or
treating them as some type of conspiracy generated
to create cracks in the rocky foundation laid down
by the Tigrai Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), the
GOT should view these diverse issues as golden
opportunities to initiate viable strategies for
redesigning and transforming the Regional State of
Tigray.
The
2009 Census of the Tigray Regional State indicates
that about 215,549 people live in Mekelle city (Central
Statistical Authority, 2008). The third largest
metropolitan city in Ethiopia, Mekelle City
undergoes continuous urbanization on an
unprecedented scale, with dense population and
over expansion. It suffers from greenhouse gas
emissions, solid waste mismanagement, and local
ecological distress. Worse yet, water scarcity,
water pollution, and adverse health effects
consistently overwhelm the city’s resilience.
Against this background, Mekelle city dwellers
also lack basic social and health services. Though
regarded as basic human rights, the GOT has also
failed to provide land to city dwellers to build
houses, while members of the ruling class are
allowed to build big houses and reside in
mansions. Meanwhile, rental units remain
sub-standard for those who can afford to rent.
Astonishingly,
the GOT has been willfully evicting residents of
Mekelle and Endarta by paying them as little as
three birr per square meter—then re-selling the
same land to the highest bidder for over ten times
what they paid for it. Now, a large portion of the
displaced are paid a meager 15 monthly kilograms
of wheat in food-aid for their mandatory hard
labor, or they flee to Mekelle city to wander as
beggars, thieves, and vagabonds (Hishe, 2019).
The
dramatic expansion of the Mekelle city could be
attributed to push and pull factors. Over the
years, Mekelle City has been pulling residents
from other regions because it has established
itself as Ethiopia’s administrative, commercial,
industrial, and social services center. In search
of higher wages, the unemployed from other parts
of the region have been flocking to the City of
Mekelle to earn their livelihood. Meanwhile, the
dearth of poverty and lack of employment
opportunities in other regions has pushed
residents of the other regions toward Mekelle
City. Thus, Mekelle has earned the title “Killer
City,” because it achieved economic acceleration
at the expense of its surrounding areas.
Mekelle’s disproportionate concentration
economic activities have
not only perpetuated a sense of
maladministration among the Regional State of
Tigray, but it also has hindered its economic
intercourse with the other regions. As a result,
Ayele (2019) strongly argues that the social and
economic ills confronting Mekelle City require not
only short-term crisis management, but also
fundamental structural changes in order embark on
sustainable urban development.
Given
this, Mekelle City requires the most viable
proactive strategies to relieve
its excessive growth congestion, lack of basic
water services, inadequate infrastructure, and
solid waste mismanagement—while concurrently lifting
its outlying regions toward vibrancy and
manageability. This
paper proposes that Mekelle City, as the capital
of the Regional State Tigray, must be rotated with
the major cities in the other six administrative
zones. Rotating governors could deepen the
engagement of government partnership and offer
leadership opportunities to a wider group of civil
society actors. Admittedly, rotating capital
cities constitutes a major task.
Mekelle city has to be re-structured and a
substantial investment is required to construct
the necessary infrastructures in the other six
administrative zones.
Restructuring the Capital Cities of Tigray Region: As shown in Table 1, the Tigray National Regional State is divided into
seven zones: (1) South Zone, (2) South East Zone,
(3) Central Zone, (4) Mekelle Special zone, (5)
West Zone, (6) East Zone, and (7) North West
Zone). Based on a two-year rotation scheme, it is
proposed that the governors of the selected zone,
while remaining in their zones, could oversee the
entire administration of the Regional State of
Tigray. In other words, the major cities of the
six existing zones could join to form a
decentralized government or initiate an associated
confederation of zones to accommodate the Mekelle
Special zone and function as administrative
capital cities of the Regional State of Tigray.
Table 1:
List of Zones in the Tigray Region
List
of Zones
|
List
of Districts by zones
|
South
Zone
|
·
Alajie
·
Alamata
·
Endamrhoni
·
Raya
Azebo
|
South
East Zone
|
·
Enderta
·
Hinalo
Wajirat
·
Samre
·
Degua
Tembien
|
Central
Zone
|
·
Abergale
·
Adwa
·
Enticho
·
Kola
Tembien
·
La’ilay
Maychew
·
Mereb
Lehe
·
Naeder
Adef
·
Tahtay
Maychew
·
Werie
Lehe
|
Mekele
Special Zone
|
·
Mekele
|
West
Zone
|
·
Kafta
Humera
·
Tsegede
·
Welkait
|
East
Zone
|
·
Atsbi
Weberta
·
Ganta
Afeshum
·
Gulomakda
·
Hawzen
·
Irob
·
Saesi
Tsaeddaemba
·
Kilte
Awulaelo
|
North
West Zone
|
·
Asgede
Tsimbela
·
La’ilay
Adiyabo
·
Medebay
Zana
·
Tahtay
Adiyabo
·
Tahtay
Koraro
·
Tselemti
|
Source:
Central Statistical Agency (2005). http://www.csa.gov.et/text_files/2005_national_statistics..htm.
As
Mekelle acts as a centripetal force, accumulating
administrative, industrial and commercial
services, other residents of Tigray have moved to
Mekelle to earn a livelihood. Also, poor
infrastructure in other zones of Tigray has forced
the displaced to depend on Mekelle for all vital
social services. Hence, the proposal herein
suggests that if the capital city of Tigray is
subject to a rotation, the major cities of the
seven participating zones are likely to ensure
equal socio-economic development, curtail security
threats, create new employment opportunities, and
minimize hidden feelings of parochialism (awrajawinet)
by stimulating
unity, sparking the multiple-zone capital to better governance, which in
turn promotes business-friendly institutions.
Nonetheless,
establishing regional capital cities on rotational
basis is no small undertaking.
Relocating regional state government structure
bears costs and benefits. A first set of expenses
includes operational
costs for setting up general infrastructure
required for transportation, housing to
accommodate new employees, and building space for
administrative as well as other facilities. The
benefits gained by establishing the new capital
city may include improvements in infrastructure,
increased hotel capacity, and enhanced commercial
activities.
To
summarize, faced with over-population,
over-expansion and water scarcity, Mekelle City
has gradually become less habitable. Also, as the
administrative center of the Regional State of
Tigray, Mekelle has inadvertently caused
substantial neglect among its outlying regions. As
a response, this paper proposes an analytical
framework for the decentralization of the Regional
State of Tigray. By steadily creating a new,
rotatable, two-year administrative or executive
(but neither judiciary nor legislative) branch of
government, located in each of the six sparsely
populated zones, the Regional State of Tigray can
foster a renaissance in democratic governance.
If
carefully implemented, this each two-year rotation
of capital in Tigray Region would, in short run,
create infrastructural investment, more balanced
zones, and encourage inclusive governance. In the
long run, however, creating rotatable capital
cities would neutralize local disharmony and help
turn the seven zones into well-functioning engines
for the development of Tigray Regional State.
It
is high time to relieve Mekelle City from some of
the socio-economic problems it faces. Every two
years, the central cities of the existing
federation of the seven zones in the Regional
State of Tigray must rotate; then, the
democratically chosen governor of the zone must
assume presidency of the Regional state. By
default, Mekelle City has become unmanageable and
stifled with unclean water, pollution, and solid
waste mismanagement. With each two-year rotation,
the major cities of the seven zones would likely
stimulate the economy, foster social equity,
galvanize a greener environment, and encourage
mutual empathy among residents. To further honor
democracy, every subunit or woredea
located in every zone must be sovereign;
“This would make local units more manageable.
They will each have a say in selecting their own
administrators, holding them to account for their
decisions. Each unit could have a number of
municipalities run by community elected mayors and
council members” (Desta, April 17, 2017).
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