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Leather
sector’s learning disabilities
Wondirad Seifu, July 12, 2008, The Reporter
Fortune is lingering in the Ethiopian leather sector in
which owing of a tannery is the most likely stake. Paradoxically, the sector’s
progress is flimsy, despite a huge inflow of capital, immense livestock
population and bounty of qualified stocks.
It is also accompanied by a seemingly prestigious training
institute, a trustee board for hide and skins, a gentlemen club, a germinated
guild, as well as a symbolic aid agency and a gust house preaching economic
integration. The list may continue, but the problem will not discontinue,
unless the sector’s chronic problem is uprooted, its productivity remains
miserable.
Leather is not late comer. Had it not for its
contribution, mankind would have not been scattered all-over the world.
Leather helps human being to go away from river banks, holding water and
protecting his feet from thorns and rough surface. That said the discovery
of leather is associated with the beginning of firing and hunting. Human
being learnt how to use wood smoke to tan hunted animals’ skins. Later he
learnt how to extract tanning material from wood.
This, probably, is the first milestone in the world
history of leather making. The second milestone was identified with the use
of mineral tanning materials. The third development was associated with
environmental pollution which caused an international migration of
tanneries from the developed to under-developed nations. At the time the
movement was with the most polluted part of a tanning phase, which is
devoid of high value added processes.
Ensuing the migration, chemical
and machinery agents were flourishing delegating trance- national
corporations, mainly from Europe. In parallel, establishing of leather
training institutes was inevitable in some African countries, including
Ethiopia. Very recently the country has established the second leather
training institute, Leather and Leather Products Institute (LLPI), with an
out lay of 130 million birr.
A huge sum. However, in terms of recourse allocation the
institute seems inefficient; if one considers the benefits forgone from
alternative projects, for example, an investment in “sheep breeding” or
mandatory dipping of the animals in anti-parasite solution so as to obtain
large and defect free skins from “Ekeke”, a
popular parasite which severely damages the sectors productivity, among
others.
In a related development, preparations are under way to
install a training institute for the textile industry, is likely viable as
the global trade of textile products is mounting to 700 million dollars as
compared to the leather, only 70 million dollars. This, too, tells that
LLPI was born out of political necessity, if not triggered by curiosity or
untamed ambition.
In the mean time, the world leading leather training
institutes are embarking on their retirement phase. But not quite sure
about South Africa’s which once has offered scholarship on leather training
to Ethiopia, now came to the reverse order. Even so, those embarking on
retirement have managed to sale their knowledge of leather making via the products of
chemical supplies under cover names of “field service or technical assistance.”
Now the knowledge of leather making is manipulated at
the research and development laboratories of the trance-national
corporations. This is, in fact, an inevitable evil, as the developed
nation’s economy is shifting from manufacturing to service industry. This
does not necessarily imply absolute monopoly of the leather making process.
In spite of such treats and opportunities, LLPI has
launched an under-graduate program in leather science. Does it buy
sustainability? Well, it depends on the demand of the labour market and the
absorption capacity of the leather industry, among others. Hence, the
program is questionable, because the industry has been immune to structural
change, although it has been transpiring for nearly 100 years. Even if it
has been perked up by pure chance, the demand for such specialized skill is
too slow as its application is locked into a single sector.
On the flip side, the program and the institute at large
should be evaluated from the perspective of technological maturity. Such
traditional sectors like textile, leather, beer, bread, etc are saturated
with research and development outputs. In this regard, many companies
worldwide have specialised in the Ethiopian hide and skins to the extent of
calming proprietorship. Under such circumstances, conducting research and
development is perfectly synonymous with the saying, re-inventing the
wheel. Even attempting to toy with reverse-engineering would be a
waste-full activity.
On the flop side, the recognition of such threats is
traceable from the LLPI’s mission statement as frequently stressed by its
officials as “... delivering training, conducting research and development
and gradually converted into tannery...” Sadly, this tells that the
institute was stillborn.
Incidentally, the institute managerial inefficiency was
revealed at the outset of its implementation stage which it capitalised on
a scholarship on individual’s pension scheme. Still, the institute has
suffered from frequent management discontinuity.
Indeed, the recent development of the sector in fostering
equity is encouraging. Among others, it helps to mobilise individuals’ idle
cash of various sources into productive outlay. This also has provided an
opportunity for a coalition of the sector. In hindsight, they are gathering
to establish a leather guild in which they come up with a novel idea of
“importing hide and skins” to mitigate the leather industry’s problem. Does
it pursue its objectives?
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