{"id":450022,"date":"2023-06-11T11:01:16","date_gmt":"2023-06-11T15:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?p=450022"},"modified":"2023-06-11T11:06:03","modified_gmt":"2023-06-11T15:06:03","slug":"ethiopia-government-accuses-usaid-of-defaming-its-good-image","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/450022","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia government accuses USAID of defaming its \u201cgood image\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Ethiopian government on Saturday accused the US government\u2019s humanitarian agency, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) of defaming its good image.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a press conference given to state media outlets, Legesse Tulu, Minister of the Ethiopia Government Communication Service (EGCS), said USAID is releasing statements that defame the good image of the federal government, regional administrations as well as the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) in relation to reports of widespread government sanctioned theft of food aid.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Legesse accused USAID for releasing statements before investigations into reports of \u201cmassive food aid theft\u201d are complete and before \u201cmutual understanding\u201d is reached between the Ethiopian government and USAID.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Ethiopia Communications Minister also complained that USAID\u2019s findings weren\u2019t communicated to it prior to its publication.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Legesse also accused aid agencies of making a political decision that punishes millions of Ethiopians who are in urgent need of humanitarian aid.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Saturday, the ENDF released a statement denying its forces are involved in theft of food aid in the country.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The statement from the ENDF and EGCS come few days after the USAID and the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) announced that they were \u201ctemporarily\u201d suspending food aid deliveries in Ethiopia citing reports of massive diversion of food aid by Ethiopian government entities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">WFP estimates around one fifth of Ethiopia\u2019s estimated 110 million plus population is currently in need of emergency food aid.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ethiopian government on Saturday accused the US government\u2019s humanitarian agency, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) of defaming its good image. In a press conference given to state media outlets, Legesse Tulu, Minister of the Ethiopia Government Communication Service (EGCS), said USAID is releasing statements that defame the good image of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":450032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4821],"tags":[5845],"class_list":["post-450022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news","category-news","tag-ethiopia-agoa-pm-abiyu-s"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/286595642_5409016929137927_8497500957392431196_n.jpg?fit=853%2C854&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1T4q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450022"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450031,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450022\/revisions\/450031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}