Mekelle፡Telaviv, Nairobi, Pretoria, London,March 23፡2025 (Tigray Herald)
Tigray elites fight it out over EFFORT’s financial resources
The Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray, once a pillar of the Ethiopian economy, was taken apart during the war. Leaders in the region are clawing at each other to get their hands on its resources, a battle in which the federal government could be a behind-the-scenes arbitrator.
In addition to its political dimension, the 11 March overthrow of Getachew Reda’s Tigray Interim Administration (TIA) (AI, 12/03/25) is also the culmination of a long-running struggle for control of Tigray’s economic resources. Although the leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) eventually seized power by force, they had been trying for many months to get their hands on the region’s financial manna.
The Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT) is a conglomerate comprised of a dozen companies that long served as the TPLF’s financial arm when the party dominated Ethiopian business between 1990 and 2018. Its capital was estimated at about $4bn before the war, although no audit was made public.
Beyene Mekru, the conglomerate’s CEO since 2018, fled to Addis Ababa on 12 March, as did Getachew the day before. Both men, who are allies, were excluded from the TPLF during the purge in September 2024 (AI, 27/09/24). For several months, Beyene had been in the sights of Debretsion Gebremichael, the current head of TPLF, to such an extent that he feared for his safety in Mekele, the region’s capital, even before the recent events.
Intimidation tactics
After excluding Beyene from the party, the TPLF then tried to squeeze him out of the conglomerate, before the 11 March events, during an EFFORT board of directors meeting on 15 and 16 February. The TPLF leader forced the election of a new executive committee comprised of his allies. At the head of this new parallel body is Abraham Tekeste, former Ethiopian finance minister from 2016 to 2018 and a TPLF senior official who is backed by Addisalem Balema, former vice-president of Tigray and member of the party’s central committee.
The parallel committee has no legal basis – the election being annulled by the interim government’s justice office – but it remains nonetheless active. There have been several accounts reporting that its representatives have intimidated managing directors of Tigray-based companies to extract funds from the few companies still operating at full capacity, such as Mesfin Industrial Engineering (MIE), Messebo Cement Factory and logistics giant Trans Ethiopia. Although officially separate from TPLF, the conglomerate has been owned by party leaders since its creation in 1995.
Now that the interim administration, which was close to the authorities in Addis Ababa, is out of the picture, the TPLF intends to get its hands on these companies. This task is made all the simpler given that the party has seized the Tigray government’s official stamps. Last week following the coup, several of EFFORT’s company directors left the region.
Decline of a former giant
The fight for control over the conglomerate is essential for Tigrayan leadership, although the former is just a mere shadow of what it used to be. The once-thriving giant has largely suffered the effect of the Tigray war (2020-2022). Sources within the company report the disappearance or destruction of around 75% of its assets.
The largest pharmaceutical company prior to the war, Addis Pharmaceutical Factory (APF), was ruined, as was the agricultural behemoth Hiwot Agricultural Mechanization, particularly active in sesame production in western Tigray (or Wolkait), which is still occupied by Amhara forces and the federal government.
Other organisations have had their assets confiscated by the authorities in Addis Ababa. Two and a half years after the war, the Ethiopian army continues to use around 40 lorries belonging to Messebo. Similarly, about half of Trans Ethiopia’s fleet of 500 lorries is in the hands of the federal and regional authorities in Amhara and Oromia.
Before TPLF took power, EFFORT’s management, led by Beyene, was negotiating the restitution of assets with the authorities in Addis Ababa, mainly with the ministries of defence and finance. The upheaval of the situation in Tigray is likely to compromise these discussions entangled in politics. In fact, Abiy Ahmed’s government, which is seeking to marginalise the TPLF, has not been very open to the idea, despite the conglomerate’s revenue having financed a part of its activities.
In the factional war being waged in the north, the federal government knows it holds a trump card. It can resume legal proceedings against EFFORT’s companies, accused during the Tigray war of “financing terrorist organisations”. Suspended by Addis Ababa after the Pretoria Agreement, these proceedings could be reinitiated if the TPLF were to take control of the conglomerate by force. Another weapon brandished by the federal authorities behind doors is the option of freezing EFFORT’s bank accounts, a method that was also used during the conflict.
