I read a commentary by professor David Shinn, the former US Ambassador to Ethiopia and currently, adjunct professor of international affairs at the George Washington University, titled, "Ethiopia and 2011 Global Financial Integrity Report".
In his commentary, while he admits that there are problems of illicit financial flows from Ethiopia, he questioned the integrity of one of the authors, Sarah Freitas, for "singling out" Ethiopia while there are many other African countries who have higher Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) than Ethiopia.
As to me none of those African countries mentioned by the professor (Nigeria, Egypt, Sounth Africa, Libya, Angola, Republic of the Congo, Cote d'Ivoire and Tunisia) with high IFF values, are comparable to Ethiopia by most standards, except being located in Africa. To mention a few, the economies of these countries are not as dependent on foreign aid as is Ethiopia, none of these are noted for an annual begging of food from the international community, none of these countries are ruled by closely knit kleptocratic junta of one ethnic group.
If I had to coin a word to express the level of IFF in Ethiopia, it would certainly be even more stronger than "bleeding the country dry".
