The cash-strapped Ethiopian government has called on its creditors to accept its multimillion dollar offer of partial compensation for the assets seized by the previous military regime.
As further details emerged of the private creditors, who are demanding up to $500-million from Ethiopia as it enters its worst famine for 20 years, Addis Ababa said it was committed to settling the issue.
”The government has demonstrated its readiness to settle these claims once and for all,” Ademnur Juhar, head of negotiations with creditors in Ethiopia’s ministry of finance, told the Guardian.
Ethiopia began negotiating with its creditors two years ago and has made offers of up to $6m to settle some cases, but is being opposed by a handful of the claimants, led by the British lawyer Stephen Sutton.
Juhar said Sutton had gone out his way to block a deal by lobbying the US Congress and international organisations to suspend aid and loans unless Addis Ababa agreed to meet in full a claim of $46-million on behalf of the Papassinos family.
Two other cases concern Greek families each claiming more than $10-million for the loss of their Ethiopian businesses 27 years ago. The Lazardis brothers are asking for $16-million in compensation for a nationalised cotton mill, and the shareholders of Bianil Ethiopia are asking for $11-million.
Most of the 42 claims relate to the seizure of assets from a thriving Greek business community. Many Italians also lost all their investments in the country, but Rome agreed a decade ago to foot most of the compensation bill. – Guardian Unlimited Â