Addis Ababa's New Light Rail Is a White Elephant Project [Pictures]

Ethiopian driver smashing into the new light rail in Addis Ababa. 

When Ethiopia secured funds from the Export-Import Bank of China to build a $475m (£295m) electrified railway that stretches 34km [21 miles] along the main arteries of Addis Ababa, most Ethiopians knew it was a white elephant project intended to buy political time.

Instead of focusing on more important needs, such as improving food security, or educating the 61% of Ethiopians who still do not know how to read or write, the Ethiopian regime is obsessed with a North Korean-style strategy of building grande projects for political consumption.

And when you have a impoverished country such as Ethiopia, where the majority are not educated, this doesn't bode well for the maintenance of the projects. Already, citizens in Addis Ababa are turning the rail line into an open-air market, parking lots for drunken drivers, and public toilets for the city's homeless.

The cruel irony is the Ethiopian people will have to pay back the Chinese for the TPLF's loan with crippling interests. Even worse, they will continue paying the Chinese to maintain these projects because the regime was too busy trying to impress donor nations and party loyalists than focusing on meaningful investments for the betterment of their people.

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