Easter and the market

The Easter Holiday, as any one of the other national holidays in Ethiopia, has its own significance in the Christian Calendar. It is a reflection of religious belief, culture and tradition at the same time.
The average house-hold that belongs to the traditional orthodox creed receives the holiday by either slaughtering a goat or sheep or killing a coke or a hen or a combination of any one of the above. Some friends form groups and slaughter a bull or an ox and share the meat among them in what we call “Kircha.” Even those with low income brackets kill coke or hen and observe the holiday festivity together with their loved families.
From tradition point of view, one enjoys the festival by decorating the floor of the living room by spreading fresh grass, mixed with some fragrant plants and by roasting coffee and burning aromatic essence.
The holiday starts in most of the traditional families early morning at 3:00 a.m. or a little after, particularly, after the church ceremonies are over and blessings are given by the elderly priests, by breaking the long fasting period in the enjoyment over the famous Ethiopian “doro-wot” or chicken sauce. Imagine how the “doro-wot” tastes for the first time after fifty-five days of abstinence or fast on meat and any diary products. The sauce is served in most houses together with traditional Ethiopian cheese. The food is then supported by “tela, tej” or any other drink of one’s taste as appetizer.
The bright Easter-week that follows in most of the traditional families is full of activity. Married couples usually greet their parents by taking them goat or sheep and making fun with the elderly. The balance tilts though, in this respect, in favour of the wife’s parents. The week has a further dimension than this. It is a time when neighbours and relatives get in contact with one another more than anytime else. They join for lunch or dinner and discuss over family affairs or over on-going projects. This family affair involves most of the time wedding ceremonies of any family member. Easter is famous for that traditionally. Every family-hold somehow gets involved in the preparation of the wedding ceremony and in its ultimate success.
It is in the light of this broad scenario that one should assess the economic impact of the Easter-holiday and the after-math nuptial festivities. The market hawks that are the speculators and the intermediaries benefit a lot and the average family looses by that much. Could the Government intervene to regulate the Easter Market situation? Could there be, on the other hand, any way for Kebeles to supervise business transactions on the spot? I think these questions are only childish in a situation of free economic activity. To do that will be unconstitutional and secondly it will be a wanton call back of the old socialist order. At most, those who should benefit most from the sale of Easter commodities should ideally be the farmers and the owners of cottage industries. However, those who create price hike are the speculators, the street sheep retailers, and the intermediaries and the cover-up cost or margin goes directly to them and not either to the direct producer or the consumer.
As the Easter market is based on the supply and demand of Easter materials, that the beneficiaries from the sales of the commodities should have been the original owners makes sense and should be appreciated. Nonetheless, the case is the reverse. Whatever that may be the case, it is up to the consumers and the original producers to protect themselves from malicious market elements that are mentioned here-above. It is them that confuse the consumers and the producers starting from the port of entry of the commodities to the location of sale.
Since it is also a matter of good governance, the appropriate government agents should help the consumer in keeping the market free from the unlicensed speculators by driving them away from the actual scenes through the introduction of pre-emptive measures in advance. Secondly, it will be in the interest of the people of Addis Ababa if the care-taker City Administration of AA should intervene to help consumers from the exploitative road sheep markets by removing them from roads and community areas and issue them clear directives in advance to trade in the open market along with others so that consumers could easily compare prices in close proximity and enable them buy whatever is cheap and edible. The same modality could be applied in other commodity markets.