In America, they call it “Three-Strikes Law”. Criminals who commit three violent or serious crimes are given 25 years to life.
The T-TPLF has declared war on Ethiopian taxi drivers!
In Ethiopia, the T-TPLF (Thugtatorship of the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front) is implementing (allegedly suspended for 3 months) what is the economic equivalent of three-strikes-and-you-are-out-of-the-taxi-business law on the country’s struggling and hand-to-mouth-surviving taxi drivers. Taxi drivers who accumulate 20 or more points for traffic infractions are permanently banned from ever driving taxis.
According to the online Addis Standard, the T-TPLF’s “new Traffic Control Regulation has six categories that begin from deducting two points for light traffic law offenses such as improper parking and commuting extra passengers beyond the carrying capacity of the taxis. The Regulation stipulates a six month suspension of driving licenses and additional driving lessons for drivers who lost 14 -16 points due to previous offenses. A driver who has 17 -19 points deducted from his/her records will get his/her driving license suspended for a year; and any driver who gets 20 and above points deducted will have his/her driving license permanently revoked and can only re-apply for a fresh driving lessons after a gap of two years.”
The T-TPLF announced implementation of its “new traffic control regulation” by telling some 500 plus taxi drivers that they will follow the “new law” or else!
The “or else” was made clear by a T-TPLF lackey named Asefa Mezgebu who told a gathering of taxi drivers that the T-TPLF is going to shove the “new law” down their throats whether they like it or not. Straight up! He made no apologies about it.
Mezgebu’s declaration of war on the taxi drivers became an instant flashpoint. The taxi drivers were enraged. They went on strike on February 22. The city’s transportation was completely paralyzed. Addis Ababans were hoofing it everywhere. The T-TPLF announced the “new law” is suspended for 90 days. The following day the taxi drivers returned to work.
According to one report, Addis Ababa has “7,500 blue and white painted minibus taxis, 800 operational buses managed by the T-TPLF-owned Anbessa City Bus Service Enterprise, 500 Higer midi buses, 25 privately owned Alliance Transport S.C. buses, supported by 4,000 white minibuses and 400 cross-country buses.”
An outraged taxi driver in an interview explained:
The reason for the strike is number one, even though the immediate reason is the new traffic law, on repeated occasions taxi drivers have been victims of legally erroneous official actions [abuse of power]. That’s why the society came out to support our strike. The society knows there is a serious problem in the country. There is a justice deficit. There is a problem of good governance. Today any TPLF member can do as he wishes; he can arrest and jail a taxi driver. He can order him [taxi driver] any way he wants. This is [strike] a movement in which taxi drivers are trying to assert their rights. The TPLF and EPRDF (the front organization used by the TPLF to hide its true identity) have tried to foil the strike by threatening taxi drivers. [In the new law] one offense could fetch 7 points and if a driver has 20 points, he is completely out of a livelihood. They [T-TPLF] have tried to intimidate them by threatening to take away their driver’s licenses, unscrew and remove their license plates and even impound their vehicles. But 99.9 percent of the taxi drivers joined the strike without fear…
This is not the first time the T-TPLF has been squeezing the private transport sector.
In August 2014, the T-TPLF slapped a heavy tax on car importers and dealers (T-TPLF cronies exempted, of course).
A car dealer who was paying 134,000Br in sundry taxes for the preceding five years was required to pay 380,000Br in 2014 for the same transaction as a result of “a suddenly implemented Customs law”, just like the suddenly implemented traffic regulation. The dealer complained about paying multiple taxes to the T-TPLF including “35% customs tax, 10% surtax, 100% excise tax, 15% VAT (value added tax) and 3% withholding tax.”
The T-TPLF has gone hog-wild in an extortion scheme which it calls a “tax”.
What exactly is the T-TPLF’s three-strikes-and-you-are-out-of-the-taxi-business law all about?
The T-TPLF’s three-strikes-and-kiss-your-taxi-business-good-bye law is one of the “finest” scams I have seen the T-TPLF do in quite some time.
A couple of weeks ago, the T-TPLF tried to palm off its plan for sex tourism as “medical tourism”.
Yes, the T-TPLF actually tried to sneak right under our noses a deal with a Qatari developer for a huge sex tourism resort in Ethiopia for Middle Eastern sex fiends and degenerates as “medical tourism”.
The TPLF thugs believed they could pull the wool over our eyes; but they failed. We figured it out.
I have always said that at the core of the group of thugs running the T-TPLF machine are a small cadre of the most cunning, conniving, wily, scheming, evil, vicious, diabolical, wicked, shadowy and Machiavellian political operators to be found anywhere on the planet. They are the crookedest hombres in all of Africa.
I believe the T-TPLF crooks have once again tried to outwit, outfox, outsmart, outmaneuver, out-tricked and out-finesse their adversaries. This time struggling taxi drivers!
I hate to say it but it seems to me many of the striking taxi drivers are not seeing the forest for the individual trees.
They are just not seeing the big picture.
They are being distracted by the T-TPLF’s dog and pony show called the “new traffic regulation”.
The taxi drivers are falling for the T-TPLF’s old smoke and mirrors games.
The taxi drivers are being scammed and conned and they don’t even see it. What a pity!!!
Just a few weeks ago, the T-TPLF tried to scam farmers in the areas surrounding Addis Ababa by imposing something they called the “Addis Ababa Master Plan”.
As I have demonstrated in my recent commentary, that was the “T-TPLF Masters’ Plan”.
The T-TPLF disguised their voracious and insatiable appetite for land grabbing by calling it “Addis Ababa Master Plan.” The T-TPLF, after grabbing every inch of the capital, tried to do the same on the outskirts.
But they were stopped by courageous Ethiopians who told the T-TPLF con artists to go to hell. The T-TPLF cowered and said there was no such plan; it was just an idea they were thinking about. Yeah, right!
Now the T-TPLF is pulling a similar rip-off scam to victimize taxi drivers. But they were stopped by courageous Ethiopian taxi drivers who told the T-TPLF con artists to get the hell. The T-TPLF backed down for 90 days. But don’t be fooled. The T-TPLF will be back like the plague after going silent for a while.
My information suggests that the T-TPLF’s so-called new traffic law is not about improving traffic conditions.
It is not about reducing congestion.
It is not about transportation improvements.
My analysis based on evidence and information I have is that the new law is a Trojan Horse. In ancient times, the Greeks built a huge wooden horse and hid soldiers inside and pretended to sail away. The unsuspecting Trojans brought the horse into their city only to find out at night they had been fooled. The Greek soldiers came out of the belly of the horse and attacked and let in waiting soldiers from the outside. Troy fell. Hence the expression, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”.
The T-TPLF is presenting the “new traffic regulation” as “gift” to the people of the City of Addis Ababa and other urban areas. Inside the “new law” are elite “soldiers” ready, willing and able to destroy the economic viability and political solidarity of taxi drivers and completely control the mobility of urban dwellers.
I believe the T-TPLF’s “new law” has four purposes:
First, the “new traffic law” is a powerful political weapon in the hands of the T-TPLF.
The central aim of the “law” is to neutralize Ethiopian taxi drivers as potential political and economic threats to the T-TPLF. This may not be self-evident to the taxi drivers.
The T-TPLF knows taxi drivers as a cohesive economic group could wield considerable political power. They have their fingers on the pulse of the millions of people they transport every day. They have substantial potential political power. This fact may not be self-evident to many taxi drivers. By “potential political power” I mean the same kind of potential energy (power) that is stored in a bow which is activated only when pulled to release an arrow hundreds of feet away to a target.
The T-TPLF knows the potential political power of taxi drivers theoretically, practically and historically.
In 1973 when oil prices increased fourfold and Ethiopia was in the grips of a “biblical famine”, taxi drivers went on strike to protest high gasoline prices and became decisive catalysts in the revolution against the imperial government. They set the example for teachers, rail workers and dockworkers who also went on strike demanding higher wages. Students mobilized against the famine and the military hijacked the popular movement and established a military dictatorship.
Nonetheless, there is no question that the taxi drivers strike was catalyst in the 1973 popular uprising.
On February 22, 2016, the taxi drivers showed the T-TPLF the kind of devastating organizational power they have and can exercise effectively to the T-TPLF when they went on strike.
The T-TPLF “strategists” have long known the political potential of taxi drivers and the potential role they could play in the event of any popular uprising against them. Thus, the systematic weakening and disassembly of taxi drivers as a cohesive political and economic force is the guiding principle in the T-TPLF’s “new traffic law”.
The T-TPLF knows that taxi drivers are the hemoglobin of the Ethiopian urban economy and transportation system. They have the power to use their cohesive economic power to bring both the economy and the transportation system to its knees, which is exactly what they did on February 22.
The T-TPLF has destroyed all of its political opposition and political parties. There are officially 79 political parties and only one (the T-TPLF wolf in EPRDF sheep clothing) won 100 percent of the seats in a monkey (kangaroo) parliament.
There is little doubt in my mind that the T-TPLF’s “new traffic law” is aimed at the dissolution of the economic and political power of taxi drivers perceived by the T-TPLF to be an existential threat.
Second, I believe the T-TPLF to achieve its political objective of dismantling taxi drivers as a threat is using the “new traffic law” to systematically depopulate (cleanse) the ranks of taxi drivers and repopulate them with taxi drivers who are T-TPLF cronies, supporters, friends, lackeys and others loyalists who could monopolize the taxi business.
One can see this strategy by analyzing the penalty structure of the “new law”. The 20 point system to strike out a taxi driver for the taxi business is manifestly designed to eliminate as many current taxi drivers as possible in the shortest possible time. For instance, a taxi driver could accumulate traffic offenses amounting to 7 points in a single day, e.g. negligent driving, equipment failure, violations due to inadequate traffic control devices, accidents, peak hour offenses, etc. Within days or weeks, a taxi driver could accumulate 20 plus points and be banned from the taxi business permanently.
As existing taxi drivers are forced to leave the profession by the point system, the T-TPLF will gladly hand out some of the licenses of the disqualified taxi drivers to its cronies, supporters, friends and lackeys as patronage (free gift to its hard core supporters). The T-TPLF will no doubt sell the taxi licenses to others at exorbitant prices. Gradually, T-TPLF supporters, cronies and bootlickers will dominate the taxi business and serve the interests of the T-TPLF. They may even serve as “party spies” for the T-TPLF reporting on the public mood and sentiment.
I will predict with a high degree of certainty that if the T-TPLF’s “new law” goes into effect, within two years on the outside, 80-85 percent of taxi drivers will be out of the taxi driving business and they will have been replaced by T-TPLF supporters and cronies. If they are lucky, a few may get their licenses back by becoming “EPRDF” members. Other than that, they will have to find a different profession or hit the streets with a bowl in hand. (I believe I have a very good record of making predictions that have come true.) This is a bitter fact the Ethiopian taxi drivers must face.
The T-TPLF’s corruption in licensing, “government” contracts, reduction of owed taxes and changing legal outcomes have been documented extensively in the massive 2012 World Bank Corruption Study in Ethiopia.
The fact that the T-TPLF will use the “new traffic law” to control and make subservient an entire segment of the urban economy can be answered by answering the following questions:
Can anyone in Ethiopia today reasonably expect to get employment in the public sector without being a member of the “EPRDF”?
Can anyone remain in public employment without showing loyalty and subservience to the EPRDF?
Can anyone in Ethiopia today reasonably expect to attend the better higher educational institutions without being an EPRDF member?
Or even receive international food aid? One need only review the evidence in Human Rights Watch’s 105-page report, “Development without Freedom: How Aid Underwrites Repression in Ethiopia,” to understand how the T-TPLF has used donor-supported resources and aid as a tool to consolidate its power.
If the T-TPLF can squeeze starving peasants to their knees, is it any wonder that it can bleed taxi drivers dry?
The fact of the matter is that the T-TPLF control freaks must control everything to feel secure.
Taxi drivers make them insecure as hell. The T-TPLF must control the taxi drivers by any means necessary.
Third, the T-TPLF “new traffic law” imposes a hidden taxi tax wrapped in an extortion scam: FOLLOW THE MONEY
It is an open secret that the T-TPLF is desperate for cash. The T-TPLF is desperate for cash as a vampire is desperate for blood to suck.
The T-TPLF has tried everything to generate cash flow: grab and sell land, historic books from the country’s oldest library, archaeological relics and anything else in sight.
The T-TPLF has even resorted to sell women’s bodies for cash by calling its sex tourism business “medical tourism”.
Ethiopia’s “foreign currency exchange services is grossly mismanaged” leading to a mushrooming of a foreign currency black market.
The T-TPLF is scrounging for greenbacks and Euros to move offshore into their private accounts.
Just last month, “A high level panel delegated by the African Union (AU) and chaired by Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, has found Ethiopia to be among the top African nations in terms of being a source of illicit financial flows (IFFs), most of which makes ways to the developed world.”
Global Financial Integrity in 2011 reported, “The people of Ethiopia are being bled dry. No matter how hard they try to fight their way out of absolute destitution and poverty, they will be swimming upstream against the current of illicit capital leakage.” (Emphasis added.)
The T-TPLF “new traffic law” is calculated to bleed dry Ethiopian taxi drivers!!!
The taxi driving business is the only business that can even be called marginally independent, not under the total monopoly of the T-TPLF.
There is no income generating business in Ethiopia that is not owned, controlled, managed or that somehow has escaped T-TPLF’s clutches. NONE!
Can anyone deny the fact that the T-TPLF will snap any business that seems profitable and growing? Any business! If they are unable to take it over, does it not disappear overnight?
Doesn’t the T-TPLF completely control the economy, the military, the politics, civil institutions, etc.? By what percentage did the T-TPLF win the last election? Anyone have any idea?
The T-TPLF “new traffic law” imposes a huge hidden tax dressed as a traffic fine on taxi drivers managed through a high tech scam scheme.
On February 22, 2016, a business entity which calls itself “Lehulu” announced:
As of today (Monday February 22, 2015) all drivers who violate traffic rules in Addis Ababa will be paying their penalties at “Lehulu”. Lehulu will be the sole place for traffic penalty payment processing in Addis Ababa.
The whole idea of paying traffic penalties through a “private company” stinks of corruption to the high heavens, as far as I am concerned.
The bagman in the T-TPLF taxi driver extortion scam is a shadowy entity called “Kifiya Financial Technology” which operates a payment system called “Lehulu”.
Sniff, sniff…
I smell a big, fat, bulging-eyes rat in the “Lehulu” deal with the T-TPLF.
I could smell that rat from 10 thousand miles away. (Sniff, sniff… PEE-YEW…)
But what is “Kifiya Financial Technology”? What is “Lehulu”?
****After we started investigating “Kifiya Financial Technology”, its website was taken down.**** When the relevant link is clicked on, the message states, “This Account Is Unavailable.”
Thanks to Google archives, the evidence is still available. See link (1) HERE, (2) HERE (3) HERE.
According to newbusinessethiopia.com, “‘LEHULU’ [is] a Private Public Partnership (PPP) between the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology & Kifiya Financial Technology PLC in collaboration with the Federal Transport Authority and Addis Ababa Roads Transport Authority.”
Kifiya Financial Technology claims its “VISION is to make a contribution to improving the lives of people by making transactions simple, affordable, and within reach.” Its “MISSION is to create an integrated, scalable service that enables access to financial and non-financial services by building sustainable technology and distribution infrastructure.”
Kifiya Financial Technology’s public partners include the “Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Ethio telecom, Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation and Addis Ababa Water and Sewage Authority.”
But who are the partners (with real names, that is) with the T-TPLF at Kifiya Financial Technology?
Who owns Kifiya Financial Technology?
Who is behind Kifiya Financial Technology?
On its “About” webpage, Kifiya Financial Technology states the company was “established in February 2010 by the founders of a company with more than two decades of experience in Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Ethiopia.” (Emphasis added.)
Nowhere on Kifiya Financial Technology’s website or other public domain sources is any information available on the identities of the owners, co-owners, partners or other stakeholders in the company.
The identity of the Kifiya Financial Technology owners is intentionally and completely shrouded in layers of mystery.
Why?
Inquiry with certain individuals in the private and public sectors who are very familiar with the Ethiopian “IT sector” (such as it is) drew only blank stares.
It is not clear even to those in the Ethiopian “IT sector” who the owners, stakeholders, partners, etc., of Kifiya Financial Technology are!
On its website, Kifiya Financial Technology brags about its dozens of “Lehulu centers”; but its lists no headquarters.
On the Kifiya Financial Technology PLC website “Contact” page, Kifiya lists no address for its headquarters, which is extraordinary for an organization that claims to have so many clients and brags about its partnership with the “government”. It lists a postal address and an info@email address as a contact point. (Sniff… sniff…)
It is mind-boggling that a company that supposedly generates billion 1.92Br can be contacted only through info@email address.
Kifiya Financial Technology claims to handle “2.1 million transactions each month” with “1.1 million bill paying customers.” It claims to “employ 450+ people” and operates “31 Lehulu centers with 26 more centers coming soon.” The company expects to generate over 1.92 billion birr revenue by “the end of the project”.
Kifiya Financial Technology PLC brags on its website that its owners are IT experts with decades-long experience?
Who are the alleged experts who own Kifiya Financial Technology PLC? Do they have names? Perhaps nicknames? How about pseudonyms? Anything? Do they really exist?
There is nothing known about the alleged IT experts owners with alleged decades-long experience! If they hide their identities on their fine website, is it because they have something to hide?
Obviously, despite intensive investigation to discover the identities of the owners of Kifiya Financial Technology over the past days, it has not been possible to ascertain or establish the owners or individual(s) behind that company. Even those who are in a position to know, know nothing about the owners, partners and stakeholder of Kifiya Financial Technology.
Hold on a moment! I know what you are thinking!
You are probably saying that because of the thick fog of secrecy and total mystery over the identities of the owners, partners and stakeholders Kifiya Financial Technology that I am suggesting there is monkey business going on.
Please don’t put words in my keyboard!
Let me make it crystal clear!
I am not saying that Kifiya Financial Technology is owned, operated and managed in whole or in part by members, supporters and cronies of the T-TPLF.
I am not saying T-TPLF bosses actually own Kifiya Financial Technology and are using the company as a front just like they are using the EPRDF party as a front for the T-TPLF.
I am not saying T-TPLF bosses are the silent partners in Kifiya Financial Technology.
I am not saying the owners of Kifiya Financial Technology (whoever they are) paid a kickback to the T-TPLF to snag the lucrative deal or made under the table deals with the T-TPLF to snag such a cash cow or a mint to print money off the backs of taxi drivers and others.
I am not saying that the secrecy and mystery surrounding the owners, partners and stakeholders of Kifiya Financial Technology necessarily means anyone with eyes can see the fingerprints and footprints of the T-TPLF are all over Kifiya Financial Technology.
I am not saying that the T-TPLF has previously used dozens of front organizations such as EFFORT to run all sorts of businesses and scams and now it is using Kifiya Financial Technology in the usual fashion.
I am not saying any of the above. So don’t put words in my mouth, or more accurately into my keyboard.
I am not as cynical as y’all are!
All I am saying is something very simple: It is incredible and unimaginable to me that a mega financial institution with the capacity to generate 1.2 billion birr in revenue has made a deliberate decision to completely conceal and hide the identities of its owners, partners and stakeholders who are riding the gravy train.
The only thing I can tell the Ethiopian taxi drivers is: FOLLOW THE MONEY!
When you find out who owns Kifiya Financial Technology PLC, you will find out how you have been made a bottomless cash pit, cash cows, better yet, the geese that lay the golden eggs for the T-TPLF.
Fight back in T-TPLF monkey (kangaroo) court to find out secret T-TPLF holdings in Kifiya Financial Technology PLC.
Sweat the monkeys in monkey court even if you are sure to lose.
Fourth, the T-TPLF’s “new traffic law” is a windfall to T-TPLF traffic police, manna from heaven.
The new law is nothing short of a shakedown license for the T-TPLF’s corrupt traffic police. T-TPLF police are licking their chops and rubbing their paws like laughing hyenas. They just can’t wait to pounce of the taxi drivers. The “new law” marks the opening of traffic police hunting season on taxi drivers.
Consider the evidence from the World Bank on T-TPLF police corruption in Ethiopia.
The 2012 World Bank corruption study on Ethiopia (“Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia”, see pp. 214-215) lists the corrupt practices of the T-TPLF police.
The report lists a whole set of corrupt practices T-TPLF police are involved in.
Among the dozens of corrupt practices documented in the World Bank report include:
- Bribe taking by traffic police
- Abuse of power or excessive use of force—not always corruption, although in some cases it may involve threats of false arrest or falsification of evidence
- Taking of bribes to alter evidence
- Taking of bribes to harass witnesses, or in the case of legal actions against police, doing it to help out a colleague
- Theft of evidence when it has some value
- Taking of bribes to not make or to delay an arrest—it was mentioned that some suspects ask to delay the arrest until a Monday, thus avoiding a weekend in jail and avoiding jail entirely by paying bail
- Taking of bribes to (a) not find the defendant so that he or she does not appear for the charging hearing, or (b) not bring witnesses for the prosecution.
T-TPLF police might as well be renamed as extortion rackets mafia style. They are the equivalent of “soldiers” in a mafia family (the enforcers, the muscle, the grunts who do the T-TPLF’s dirty jobs).
I have personally seen personal phone videos of Ethiopian motorists paying bribes to T-TPLF traffic after being openly solicited. I have dozens of anecdotal stories of T-TPLF police soliciting bribes in all sorts of circumstances. In one somewhat humorous circumstance, a motorist visiting Addis Ababa paid 500Br to a traffic policewoman just to avoid missing a flight. That motorist later became a laughing stock among friends because the motorist was taken for a ride and then to the cleaners. It was said that he could have slipped 50Br and taken care of the problem. The motorist vowed never to return to Ethiopia because of the humiliation in the blatant police shakedown. I am sure the traffic policewoman must have done the watusi after snagging the 500 Br. From the unsuspecting motorist. (Go girl, it’s your birthday…?)
According to Global Integrity, “The Ethiopian Roads Authority (Ye-Ethiopia Menged Transport Balesiltan) is ranked one of the most corrupt public institutions in the country, due to impropriety in the issuance of driver’s licenses and annual vehicle inspections, according to FEACC reports. The Federal Transport Authority (FTA) also has been exposed for employing extensive corrupt operating procedures.”
A January 2014 study on foreign companies that invest in Ethiopia revealed T-TPLF traffic police as “requesting the most bribe than any of the employees in the other institutions.”
The “new traffic law” is an out-and-out extortion scheme to rip off taxi drivers. It is tax on taxi drivers dressed up as a traffic regulation.
It is a pay to play scam.
If taxi drivers in Ethiopia want to play the T-TPLF taxi driving game, they have to pay extortion money to the T-TPLF by way of traffic police in the streets who pass on the proceeds to their bosses.
If the taxi drives don’t want to pay to play, they are toast.
Taxi drivers gotta pay the T-TPLF to play the taxi driving game.
What does all this mean to taxi drivers?
The T-TPLF traffic police literally hold life and death powers over Ethiopia taxi drivers.
If a corrupt T-TPLF policeman wants to incapacitate any taxi driver, s/he, coordinating with his corrupt confederates and bosses, could issue citations over a matter of days and permanently put the taxi driver out of the taxi driving business. The is what the “new law” will do when (not if) it is implemented.
The T-TPLF’s “new traffic law” makes traffic police “gods” over struggling taxi drivers.
That is an undeniable fact!
The “federal transport bureau” announced on the day of the strike that the implementation date for the new regulation has been postponed by three months. Yeah, right!
The “federal” whatever-it-is-called also said the “Addis Ababa Master Plan” is dead. Actually, it never existed. But even if it never existed, it is dead.
That is the problem with the T-TPLF. Those thugs think they are so smart and everybody so dumb that they think they can pull their dumb crap and expect everyone will believe it.
The T-TPLF will be back with the “new old taxi law” after 90 days, 180 days or 2 years (if they last that long).
The T-TPLF will be back with the “new old Addis Ababa Master Plan” after 90 days, 180 days or 2 years (if they last that long).
What must the taxi driver do?
The T-TPLF is a juggernaut that must destroy everything in its path to survive.
Taxi driving is the only “independent” economically organized small business in Ethiopia.
The T-TPLF will do everything to destroy the taxi driving business as we know it today.
I am sure the T-TPLF right now is reviewing its list of leaders and activists in the taxi drivers strike to neutralize.
The T-TPLF will try to divide and rule the taxi drivers. They will try to buy off the strike leaders. They will intimidate the strike leaders and individual taxi drivers. They will try to create dissension and division among taxi drivers. They will try to divide them by ethnicity and religion. They will jail them as terror suspects. They will threaten to prosecute them as terrorists. They will try to recruit them to work as spies and informant on their colleagues. They will do whatever it takes to destroy the will, determination and fighting spirit of the taxi drivers.
Regardless, I will predict the T-TPLF will fail, fail, fail…
But Ethiopian taxi drivers should not be lulled into a false security. They must not give any attention to the so-called 90-day suspension of the law. They must never, never, and never again take the T-TPLF at its word. They must know the LF in TPLF stands for “Lie Factory”.
Above all, Ethiopian taxi drivers must know that the price of their economic survival is eternal vigilance.
The T-TPLF will “make” another “traffic law”, give it a nice sounding title and come back at them once more, and as many times as necessary. That is as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow.
Ethiopian taxi drivers must know and be convinced that the T-TPLF is a vampiric organization.
It needs to suck the economic blood from everything around it to survive. Including the blood of struggling taxi drivers.
EFFORT is the heart and soul of the T-TPLF Empire of Vampires.
Ethiopian taxi drivers should heed the words of one of the Founders of the American Republic just before he signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Benjamin Franklin said, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
A year later in Paris Franklin wrote, “It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.”
Ethiopian taxi drivers should know that they must hang together, form and maintain an unbreakable bond, commit heart, mind and soul to stay together through thick and thin in defending their common interests against a tyrannical thugtatorship or that tyrannical thugtatorship will hang each one of them separately.
Ethiopian taxi drivers should also know that their cause is not only theirs alone; it is the cause of all Ethiopians. In fighting for their liberties, they are fighting for the liberties of all Ethiopians!
If Ethiopian taxi drivers fail to remain strong and united, they should know the BIG BAD T-TPLF WOLF WILL BE WAITING FOR THEM AT EVERY STREET CORNER LICKING HIS CHOPS READY TO PICK THEM OFF ONE A TIME.
Ethiopian taxi drivers: Unity is strength. Where there is unity, there is always victory!
Ethiopian taxi drivers united can never be defeated!
The T-TPLF’s War on Ethiopian Taxi Drivers
Posted in Al Mariam's Commentaries By almariam On March 6, 2016The T-TPLF has declared war on Ethiopian taxi drivers!
In Ethiopia, the T-TPLF (Thugtatorship of the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front) is implementing (allegedly suspended for 3 months) what is the economic equivalent of three-strikes-and-you-are-out-of-the-taxi-business law on the country’s struggling and hand-to-mouth-surviving taxi drivers. Taxi drivers who accumulate 20 or more points for traffic infractions are permanently banned from ever driving taxis.
According to the online Addis Standard, the T-TPLF’s “new Traffic Control Regulation has six categories that begin from deducting two points for light traffic law offenses such as improper parking and commuting extra passengers beyond the carrying capacity of the taxis. The Regulation stipulates a six month suspension of driving licenses and additional driving lessons for drivers who lost 14 -16 points due to previous offenses. A driver who has 17 -19 points deducted from his/her records will get his/her driving license suspended for a year; and any driver who gets 20 and above points deducted will have his/her driving license permanently revoked and can only re-apply for a fresh driving lessons after a gap of two years.”
The T-TPLF announced implementation of its “new traffic control regulation” by telling some 500 plus taxi drivers that they will follow the “new law” or else!
The “or else” was made clear by a T-TPLF lackey named Asefa Mezgebu who told a gathering of taxi drivers that the T-TPLF is going to shove the “new law” down their throats whether they like it or not. Straight up! He made no apologies about it.
Mezgebu’s declaration of war on the taxi drivers became an instant flashpoint. The taxi drivers were enraged. They went on strike on February 22. The city’s transportation was completely paralyzed. Addis Ababans were hoofing it everywhere. The T-TPLF announced the “new law” is suspended for 90 days. The following day the taxi drivers returned to work.
According to one report, Addis Ababa has “7,500 blue and white painted minibus taxis, 800 operational buses managed by the T-TPLF-owned Anbessa City Bus Service Enterprise, 500 Higer midi buses, 25 privately owned Alliance Transport S.C. buses, supported by 4,000 white minibuses and 400 cross-country buses.”
An outraged taxi driver in an interview explained:
This is not the first time the T-TPLF has been squeezing the private transport sector.
In August 2014, the T-TPLF slapped a heavy tax on car importers and dealers (T-TPLF cronies exempted, of course).
A car dealer who was paying 134,000Br in sundry taxes for the preceding five years was required to pay 380,000Br in 2014 for the same transaction as a result of “a suddenly implemented Customs law”, just like the suddenly implemented traffic regulation. The dealer complained about paying multiple taxes to the T-TPLF including “35% customs tax, 10% surtax, 100% excise tax, 15% VAT (value added tax) and 3% withholding tax.”
The T-TPLF has gone hog-wild in an extortion scheme which it calls a “tax”.
What exactly is the T-TPLF’s three-strikes-and-you-are-out-of-the-taxi-business law all about?
The T-TPLF’s three-strikes-and-kiss-your-taxi-business-good-bye law is one of the “finest” scams I have seen the T-TPLF do in quite some time.
A couple of weeks ago, the T-TPLF tried to palm off its plan for sex tourism as “medical tourism”.
Yes, the T-TPLF actually tried to sneak right under our noses a deal with a Qatari developer for a huge sex tourism resort in Ethiopia for Middle Eastern sex fiends and degenerates as “medical tourism”.
The TPLF thugs believed they could pull the wool over our eyes; but they failed. We figured it out.
I have always said that at the core of the group of thugs running the T-TPLF machine are a small cadre of the most cunning, conniving, wily, scheming, evil, vicious, diabolical, wicked, shadowy and Machiavellian political operators to be found anywhere on the planet. They are the crookedest hombres in all of Africa.
I believe the T-TPLF crooks have once again tried to outwit, outfox, outsmart, outmaneuver, out-tricked and out-finesse their adversaries. This time struggling taxi drivers!
I hate to say it but it seems to me many of the striking taxi drivers are not seeing the forest for the individual trees.
They are just not seeing the big picture.
They are being distracted by the T-TPLF’s dog and pony show called the “new traffic regulation”.
The taxi drivers are falling for the T-TPLF’s old smoke and mirrors games.
The taxi drivers are being scammed and conned and they don’t even see it. What a pity!!!
Just a few weeks ago, the T-TPLF tried to scam farmers in the areas surrounding Addis Ababa by imposing something they called the “Addis Ababa Master Plan”.
As I have demonstrated in my recent commentary, that was the “T-TPLF Masters’ Plan”.
The T-TPLF disguised their voracious and insatiable appetite for land grabbing by calling it “Addis Ababa Master Plan.” The T-TPLF, after grabbing every inch of the capital, tried to do the same on the outskirts.
But they were stopped by courageous Ethiopians who told the T-TPLF con artists to go to hell. The T-TPLF cowered and said there was no such plan; it was just an idea they were thinking about. Yeah, right!
Now the T-TPLF is pulling a similar rip-off scam to victimize taxi drivers. But they were stopped by courageous Ethiopian taxi drivers who told the T-TPLF con artists to get the hell. The T-TPLF backed down for 90 days. But don’t be fooled. The T-TPLF will be back like the plague after going silent for a while.
My information suggests that the T-TPLF’s so-called new traffic law is not about improving traffic conditions.
It is not about reducing congestion.
It is not about transportation improvements.
My analysis based on evidence and information I have is that the new law is a Trojan Horse. In ancient times, the Greeks built a huge wooden horse and hid soldiers inside and pretended to sail away. The unsuspecting Trojans brought the horse into their city only to find out at night they had been fooled. The Greek soldiers came out of the belly of the horse and attacked and let in waiting soldiers from the outside. Troy fell. Hence the expression, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”.
The T-TPLF is presenting the “new traffic regulation” as “gift” to the people of the City of Addis Ababa and other urban areas. Inside the “new law” are elite “soldiers” ready, willing and able to destroy the economic viability and political solidarity of taxi drivers and completely control the mobility of urban dwellers.
I believe the T-TPLF’s “new law” has four purposes:
First, the “new traffic law” is a powerful political weapon in the hands of the T-TPLF.
The central aim of the “law” is to neutralize Ethiopian taxi drivers as potential political and economic threats to the T-TPLF. This may not be self-evident to the taxi drivers.
The T-TPLF knows taxi drivers as a cohesive economic group could wield considerable political power. They have their fingers on the pulse of the millions of people they transport every day. They have substantial potential political power. This fact may not be self-evident to many taxi drivers. By “potential political power” I mean the same kind of potential energy (power) that is stored in a bow which is activated only when pulled to release an arrow hundreds of feet away to a target.
The T-TPLF knows the potential political power of taxi drivers theoretically, practically and historically.
In 1973 when oil prices increased fourfold and Ethiopia was in the grips of a “biblical famine”, taxi drivers went on strike to protest high gasoline prices and became decisive catalysts in the revolution against the imperial government. They set the example for teachers, rail workers and dockworkers who also went on strike demanding higher wages. Students mobilized against the famine and the military hijacked the popular movement and established a military dictatorship.
Nonetheless, there is no question that the taxi drivers strike was catalyst in the 1973 popular uprising.
On February 22, 2016, the taxi drivers showed the T-TPLF the kind of devastating organizational power they have and can exercise effectively to the T-TPLF when they went on strike.
The T-TPLF “strategists” have long known the political potential of taxi drivers and the potential role they could play in the event of any popular uprising against them. Thus, the systematic weakening and disassembly of taxi drivers as a cohesive political and economic force is the guiding principle in the T-TPLF’s “new traffic law”.
The T-TPLF knows that taxi drivers are the hemoglobin of the Ethiopian urban economy and transportation system. They have the power to use their cohesive economic power to bring both the economy and the transportation system to its knees, which is exactly what they did on February 22.
The T-TPLF has destroyed all of its political opposition and political parties. There are officially 79 political parties and only one (the T-TPLF wolf in EPRDF sheep clothing) won 100 percent of the seats in a monkey (kangaroo) parliament.
There is little doubt in my mind that the T-TPLF’s “new traffic law” is aimed at the dissolution of the economic and political power of taxi drivers perceived by the T-TPLF to be an existential threat.
Second, I believe the T-TPLF to achieve its political objective of dismantling taxi drivers as a threat is using the “new traffic law” to systematically depopulate (cleanse) the ranks of taxi drivers and repopulate them with taxi drivers who are T-TPLF cronies, supporters, friends, lackeys and others loyalists who could monopolize the taxi business.
One can see this strategy by analyzing the penalty structure of the “new law”. The 20 point system to strike out a taxi driver for the taxi business is manifestly designed to eliminate as many current taxi drivers as possible in the shortest possible time. For instance, a taxi driver could accumulate traffic offenses amounting to 7 points in a single day, e.g. negligent driving, equipment failure, violations due to inadequate traffic control devices, accidents, peak hour offenses, etc. Within days or weeks, a taxi driver could accumulate 20 plus points and be banned from the taxi business permanently.
As existing taxi drivers are forced to leave the profession by the point system, the T-TPLF will gladly hand out some of the licenses of the disqualified taxi drivers to its cronies, supporters, friends and lackeys as patronage (free gift to its hard core supporters). The T-TPLF will no doubt sell the taxi licenses to others at exorbitant prices. Gradually, T-TPLF supporters, cronies and bootlickers will dominate the taxi business and serve the interests of the T-TPLF. They may even serve as “party spies” for the T-TPLF reporting on the public mood and sentiment.
I will predict with a high degree of certainty that if the T-TPLF’s “new law” goes into effect, within two years on the outside, 80-85 percent of taxi drivers will be out of the taxi driving business and they will have been replaced by T-TPLF supporters and cronies. If they are lucky, a few may get their licenses back by becoming “EPRDF” members. Other than that, they will have to find a different profession or hit the streets with a bowl in hand. (I believe I have a very good record of making predictions that have come true.) This is a bitter fact the Ethiopian taxi drivers must face.
The T-TPLF’s corruption in licensing, “government” contracts, reduction of owed taxes and changing legal outcomes have been documented extensively in the massive 2012 World Bank Corruption Study in Ethiopia.
The fact that the T-TPLF will use the “new traffic law” to control and make subservient an entire segment of the urban economy can be answered by answering the following questions:
Can anyone in Ethiopia today reasonably expect to get employment in the public sector without being a member of the “EPRDF”?
Can anyone remain in public employment without showing loyalty and subservience to the EPRDF?
Can anyone in Ethiopia today reasonably expect to attend the better higher educational institutions without being an EPRDF member?
Or even receive international food aid? One need only review the evidence in Human Rights Watch’s 105-page report, “Development without Freedom: How Aid Underwrites Repression in Ethiopia,” to understand how the T-TPLF has used donor-supported resources and aid as a tool to consolidate its power.
If the T-TPLF can squeeze starving peasants to their knees, is it any wonder that it can bleed taxi drivers dry?
The fact of the matter is that the T-TPLF control freaks must control everything to feel secure.
Taxi drivers make them insecure as hell. The T-TPLF must control the taxi drivers by any means necessary.
Third, the T-TPLF “new traffic law” imposes a hidden taxi tax wrapped in an extortion scam: FOLLOW THE MONEY
It is an open secret that the T-TPLF is desperate for cash. The T-TPLF is desperate for cash as a vampire is desperate for blood to suck.
The T-TPLF has tried everything to generate cash flow: grab and sell land, historic books from the country’s oldest library, archaeological relics and anything else in sight.
The T-TPLF has even resorted to sell women’s bodies for cash by calling its sex tourism business “medical tourism”.
Ethiopia’s “foreign currency exchange services is grossly mismanaged” leading to a mushrooming of a foreign currency black market.
The T-TPLF is scrounging for greenbacks and Euros to move offshore into their private accounts.
Just last month, “A high level panel delegated by the African Union (AU) and chaired by Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, has found Ethiopia to be among the top African nations in terms of being a source of illicit financial flows (IFFs), most of which makes ways to the developed world.”
Global Financial Integrity in 2011 reported, “The people of Ethiopia are being bled dry. No matter how hard they try to fight their way out of absolute destitution and poverty, they will be swimming upstream against the current of illicit capital leakage.” (Emphasis added.)
The T-TPLF “new traffic law” is calculated to bleed dry Ethiopian taxi drivers!!!
The taxi driving business is the only business that can even be called marginally independent, not under the total monopoly of the T-TPLF.
There is no income generating business in Ethiopia that is not owned, controlled, managed or that somehow has escaped T-TPLF’s clutches. NONE!
Can anyone deny the fact that the T-TPLF will snap any business that seems profitable and growing? Any business! If they are unable to take it over, does it not disappear overnight?
Doesn’t the T-TPLF completely control the economy, the military, the politics, civil institutions, etc.? By what percentage did the T-TPLF win the last election? Anyone have any idea?
The T-TPLF “new traffic law” imposes a huge hidden tax dressed as a traffic fine on taxi drivers managed through a high tech scam scheme.
On February 22, 2016, a business entity which calls itself “Lehulu” announced:
The whole idea of paying traffic penalties through a “private company” stinks of corruption to the high heavens, as far as I am concerned.
The bagman in the T-TPLF taxi driver extortion scam is a shadowy entity called “Kifiya Financial Technology” which operates a payment system called “Lehulu”.
Sniff, sniff…
I smell a big, fat, bulging-eyes rat in the “Lehulu” deal with the T-TPLF.
I could smell that rat from 10 thousand miles away. (Sniff, sniff… PEE-YEW…)
But what is “Kifiya Financial Technology”? What is “Lehulu”?
****After we started investigating “Kifiya Financial Technology”, its website was taken down.**** When the relevant link is clicked on, the message states, “This Account Is Unavailable.”
Thanks to Google archives, the evidence is still available. See link (1) HERE, (2) HERE (3) HERE.
According to newbusinessethiopia.com, “‘LEHULU’ [is] a Private Public Partnership (PPP) between the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology & Kifiya Financial Technology PLC in collaboration with the Federal Transport Authority and Addis Ababa Roads Transport Authority.”
Kifiya Financial Technology claims its “VISION is to make a contribution to improving the lives of people by making transactions simple, affordable, and within reach.” Its “MISSION is to create an integrated, scalable service that enables access to financial and non-financial services by building sustainable technology and distribution infrastructure.”
Kifiya Financial Technology’s public partners include the “Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Ethio telecom, Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation and Addis Ababa Water and Sewage Authority.”
But who are the partners (with real names, that is) with the T-TPLF at Kifiya Financial Technology?
Who owns Kifiya Financial Technology?
Who is behind Kifiya Financial Technology?
On its “About” webpage, Kifiya Financial Technology states the company was “established in February 2010 by the founders of a company with more than two decades of experience in Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Ethiopia.” (Emphasis added.)
Nowhere on Kifiya Financial Technology’s website or other public domain sources is any information available on the identities of the owners, co-owners, partners or other stakeholders in the company.
The identity of the Kifiya Financial Technology owners is intentionally and completely shrouded in layers of mystery.
Why?
Inquiry with certain individuals in the private and public sectors who are very familiar with the Ethiopian “IT sector” (such as it is) drew only blank stares.
It is not clear even to those in the Ethiopian “IT sector” who the owners, stakeholders, partners, etc., of Kifiya Financial Technology are!
On its website, Kifiya Financial Technology brags about its dozens of “Lehulu centers”; but its lists no headquarters.
On the Kifiya Financial Technology PLC website “Contact” page, Kifiya lists no address for its headquarters, which is extraordinary for an organization that claims to have so many clients and brags about its partnership with the “government”. It lists a postal address and an info@email address as a contact point. (Sniff… sniff…)
It is mind-boggling that a company that supposedly generates billion 1.92Br can be contacted only through info@email address.
Kifiya Financial Technology claims to handle “2.1 million transactions each month” with “1.1 million bill paying customers.” It claims to “employ 450+ people” and operates “31 Lehulu centers with 26 more centers coming soon.” The company expects to generate over 1.92 billion birr revenue by “the end of the project”.
Kifiya Financial Technology PLC brags on its website that its owners are IT experts with decades-long experience?
Who are the alleged experts who own Kifiya Financial Technology PLC? Do they have names? Perhaps nicknames? How about pseudonyms? Anything? Do they really exist?
There is nothing known about the alleged IT experts owners with alleged decades-long experience! If they hide their identities on their fine website, is it because they have something to hide?
Obviously, despite intensive investigation to discover the identities of the owners of Kifiya Financial Technology over the past days, it has not been possible to ascertain or establish the owners or individual(s) behind that company. Even those who are in a position to know, know nothing about the owners, partners and stakeholder of Kifiya Financial Technology.
Hold on a moment! I know what you are thinking!
You are probably saying that because of the thick fog of secrecy and total mystery over the identities of the owners, partners and stakeholders Kifiya Financial Technology that I am suggesting there is monkey business going on.
Please don’t put words in my keyboard!
Let me make it crystal clear!
I am not saying that Kifiya Financial Technology is owned, operated and managed in whole or in part by members, supporters and cronies of the T-TPLF.
I am not saying T-TPLF bosses actually own Kifiya Financial Technology and are using the company as a front just like they are using the EPRDF party as a front for the T-TPLF.
I am not saying T-TPLF bosses are the silent partners in Kifiya Financial Technology.
I am not saying the owners of Kifiya Financial Technology (whoever they are) paid a kickback to the T-TPLF to snag the lucrative deal or made under the table deals with the T-TPLF to snag such a cash cow or a mint to print money off the backs of taxi drivers and others.
I am not saying that the secrecy and mystery surrounding the owners, partners and stakeholders of Kifiya Financial Technology necessarily means anyone with eyes can see the fingerprints and footprints of the T-TPLF are all over Kifiya Financial Technology.
I am not saying that the T-TPLF has previously used dozens of front organizations such as EFFORT to run all sorts of businesses and scams and now it is using Kifiya Financial Technology in the usual fashion.
I am not saying any of the above. So don’t put words in my mouth, or more accurately into my keyboard.
I am not as cynical as y’all are!
All I am saying is something very simple: It is incredible and unimaginable to me that a mega financial institution with the capacity to generate 1.2 billion birr in revenue has made a deliberate decision to completely conceal and hide the identities of its owners, partners and stakeholders who are riding the gravy train.
The only thing I can tell the Ethiopian taxi drivers is: FOLLOW THE MONEY!
When you find out who owns Kifiya Financial Technology PLC, you will find out how you have been made a bottomless cash pit, cash cows, better yet, the geese that lay the golden eggs for the T-TPLF.
Fight back in T-TPLF monkey (kangaroo) court to find out secret T-TPLF holdings in Kifiya Financial Technology PLC.
Sweat the monkeys in monkey court even if you are sure to lose.
Fourth, the T-TPLF’s “new traffic law” is a windfall to T-TPLF traffic police, manna from heaven.
The new law is nothing short of a shakedown license for the T-TPLF’s corrupt traffic police. T-TPLF police are licking their chops and rubbing their paws like laughing hyenas. They just can’t wait to pounce of the taxi drivers. The “new law” marks the opening of traffic police hunting season on taxi drivers.
Consider the evidence from the World Bank on T-TPLF police corruption in Ethiopia.
The 2012 World Bank corruption study on Ethiopia (“Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia”, see pp. 214-215) lists the corrupt practices of the T-TPLF police.
The report lists a whole set of corrupt practices T-TPLF police are involved in.
Among the dozens of corrupt practices documented in the World Bank report include:
T-TPLF police might as well be renamed as extortion rackets mafia style. They are the equivalent of “soldiers” in a mafia family (the enforcers, the muscle, the grunts who do the T-TPLF’s dirty jobs).
I have personally seen personal phone videos of Ethiopian motorists paying bribes to T-TPLF traffic after being openly solicited. I have dozens of anecdotal stories of T-TPLF police soliciting bribes in all sorts of circumstances. In one somewhat humorous circumstance, a motorist visiting Addis Ababa paid 500Br to a traffic policewoman just to avoid missing a flight. That motorist later became a laughing stock among friends because the motorist was taken for a ride and then to the cleaners. It was said that he could have slipped 50Br and taken care of the problem. The motorist vowed never to return to Ethiopia because of the humiliation in the blatant police shakedown. I am sure the traffic policewoman must have done the watusi after snagging the 500 Br. From the unsuspecting motorist. (Go girl, it’s your birthday…?)
According to Global Integrity, “The Ethiopian Roads Authority (Ye-Ethiopia Menged Transport Balesiltan) is ranked one of the most corrupt public institutions in the country, due to impropriety in the issuance of driver’s licenses and annual vehicle inspections, according to FEACC reports. The Federal Transport Authority (FTA) also has been exposed for employing extensive corrupt operating procedures.”
A January 2014 study on foreign companies that invest in Ethiopia revealed T-TPLF traffic police as “requesting the most bribe than any of the employees in the other institutions.”
The “new traffic law” is an out-and-out extortion scheme to rip off taxi drivers. It is tax on taxi drivers dressed up as a traffic regulation.
It is a pay to play scam.
If taxi drivers in Ethiopia want to play the T-TPLF taxi driving game, they have to pay extortion money to the T-TPLF by way of traffic police in the streets who pass on the proceeds to their bosses.
If the taxi drives don’t want to pay to play, they are toast.
Taxi drivers gotta pay the T-TPLF to play the taxi driving game.
What does all this mean to taxi drivers?
The T-TPLF traffic police literally hold life and death powers over Ethiopia taxi drivers.
If a corrupt T-TPLF policeman wants to incapacitate any taxi driver, s/he, coordinating with his corrupt confederates and bosses, could issue citations over a matter of days and permanently put the taxi driver out of the taxi driving business. The is what the “new law” will do when (not if) it is implemented.
The T-TPLF’s “new traffic law” makes traffic police “gods” over struggling taxi drivers.
That is an undeniable fact!
The “federal transport bureau” announced on the day of the strike that the implementation date for the new regulation has been postponed by three months. Yeah, right!
The “federal” whatever-it-is-called also said the “Addis Ababa Master Plan” is dead. Actually, it never existed. But even if it never existed, it is dead.
That is the problem with the T-TPLF. Those thugs think they are so smart and everybody so dumb that they think they can pull their dumb crap and expect everyone will believe it.
The T-TPLF will be back with the “new old taxi law” after 90 days, 180 days or 2 years (if they last that long).
The T-TPLF will be back with the “new old Addis Ababa Master Plan” after 90 days, 180 days or 2 years (if they last that long).
What must the taxi driver do?
The T-TPLF is a juggernaut that must destroy everything in its path to survive.
Taxi driving is the only “independent” economically organized small business in Ethiopia.
The T-TPLF will do everything to destroy the taxi driving business as we know it today.
I am sure the T-TPLF right now is reviewing its list of leaders and activists in the taxi drivers strike to neutralize.
The T-TPLF will try to divide and rule the taxi drivers. They will try to buy off the strike leaders. They will intimidate the strike leaders and individual taxi drivers. They will try to create dissension and division among taxi drivers. They will try to divide them by ethnicity and religion. They will jail them as terror suspects. They will threaten to prosecute them as terrorists. They will try to recruit them to work as spies and informant on their colleagues. They will do whatever it takes to destroy the will, determination and fighting spirit of the taxi drivers.
Regardless, I will predict the T-TPLF will fail, fail, fail…
But Ethiopian taxi drivers should not be lulled into a false security. They must not give any attention to the so-called 90-day suspension of the law. They must never, never, and never again take the T-TPLF at its word. They must know the LF in TPLF stands for “Lie Factory”.
Above all, Ethiopian taxi drivers must know that the price of their economic survival is eternal vigilance.
The T-TPLF will “make” another “traffic law”, give it a nice sounding title and come back at them once more, and as many times as necessary. That is as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow.
Ethiopian taxi drivers must know and be convinced that the T-TPLF is a vampiric organization.
It needs to suck the economic blood from everything around it to survive. Including the blood of struggling taxi drivers.
EFFORT is the heart and soul of the T-TPLF Empire of Vampires.
Ethiopian taxi drivers should heed the words of one of the Founders of the American Republic just before he signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Benjamin Franklin said, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
A year later in Paris Franklin wrote, “It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.”
Ethiopian taxi drivers should know that they must hang together, form and maintain an unbreakable bond, commit heart, mind and soul to stay together through thick and thin in defending their common interests against a tyrannical thugtatorship or that tyrannical thugtatorship will hang each one of them separately.
Ethiopian taxi drivers should also know that their cause is not only theirs alone; it is the cause of all Ethiopians. In fighting for their liberties, they are fighting for the liberties of all Ethiopians!
If Ethiopian taxi drivers fail to remain strong and united, they should know the BIG BAD T-TPLF WOLF WILL BE WAITING FOR THEM AT EVERY STREET CORNER LICKING HIS CHOPS READY TO PICK THEM OFF ONE A TIME.
Ethiopian taxi drivers: Unity is strength. Where there is unity, there is always victory!
Ethiopian taxi drivers united can never be defeated!
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