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Foreign Aid in Wastebasket
By
Wondirad Seifu
06 February 2014
www.geocities.ws/ethonlines www.facebook.com/wondirad.seifu
Tanneries operating in Ethiopia are expected to dismantle their machineries in three years time as they failed to meet environmental standards. However, in recent time, these tanneries have been applauded as they installed Waste Water Treatment Plant ( WWTP) with the help of the United Nation Industrial Development Organization ( UNIDO), costing several million birr.
And yet, UNIDO is now qualified for another massive project; perhaps, changing the location of the industry at the expense of the existing tanneries, whose fate is unpredictable.
Being a by-product of a livestock industry, hide and skins (HS) constitutes only a small portion of its host animal, both in terms value and quantity. Likewise, the usable part of raw HS for leather making constitutes only a quarter of the raw HS. The rest is regarded as a tannery’s solid waste including fleshing, cutting and trimming.
Besides, in the conversion of HS into leather, various types of chemicals are required and the common ones include lime powder, salt, sodium sulphide, sulphuric acid and chromium. Unfortunately, due to the inefficiency of a tanning process, only 20 percent of these chemicals are retained in the leather. The rest, 80 per cent, goes to environment. For example, tanneries in Ethiopia are disposing over 50, 000(fifty thousand) tons of chromium salt every year to the environment (See: From wastage to usage: An Account of Chrome Recovery in Ethiopia). Mind, the other chemicals quantity is estimated many folds of the aforementioned figure, each.
Though too late, over the last five or so years an encouraging development have been taking place in the Ethiopian tanning industry, internalizing its social cost by installing WWTP in several tanneries with the help of UNDO. But this undertaking is seemingly foiled as was happened in Kenya and Uganda. Many causes are attributed for the problem ranging from inappropriate technology to absence of strong environmental agency to lack of industrial policy.
According to the Leather Industry Development Institute ( LIDI ), of the 31 tanneries in the country eight have rudimentary level WWTP, twelve have primary level, and seven have secondary level. And some three tanneries are poised to construct secondary level WWTP, perhaps for nothing.
Obviously, all these WWTP cost several million dollars, estimated in the order of 150 million birr. But the terrible news is that “none of those levels qualify,” according to LIDI. In this regard I myself had witnessed a dozen of tanneries installing UNIDO’s recommended fancy WWTP, but discharging untreated waste water to Akaki River.
Despite UNIDO’s unsuccessful story to provide appropriate WWTP, it is now coming with 840 million birr worth of common WWTP to be constructed at Modjo town, 78 KM from Addis Ababa, according to Addis Fortune, local news paper. In fact, the government assigned Modjo town as an industrial zone for tanneries, though it embraces several thousand hectare of irrigated farm land and relatively unpolluted rivers, which their fate will be determined by the efficiency of the UNIDO’s WWTP.
On the other hand, it is quiet ridicules to dislocate the industry, running over 10 billion birr worth of asset, in an over night. But this could expose that how the country is suffering from absence of industrial policy. It also shows that how the Ministry of Industry is lost in its deep sleep, except fumbling for fire fighting and publicity. Needless to mention its irrationality.
In fact, the tanneries are given an option to stay where they are so long as they meet environmental standards. But this option is already thwarted as UNIDO’s recommended WWTP is not yielding. So their fate is unpredictable, losing their money in waste basket.
Though, the technical viability of UNIDO’s project is questionable, it will help the government to gather new firms while screening with democratic revolution’s criteria. Does UNIDO subscribed to democratic revolution?
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