It's raining grain in Djibouti. In the sweltering heat of the small former
French colony, scores of dockers noisily unload and bag 50kg sacks of
European Union-bought wheat from the Vale, a vast Greek-owned bulk carrier.
Swirling kernels choke the air, clouds of pigeons gorge themselves on the
bounty.
The grain is destined for Ethiopia, where aid agencies warn that 8m people
are at risk of famine. But to Ali Hettam, the stevedore in charge of the
2,500-tonne, 24-hour-a-day unloading operation, it is an excellent
commercial opportunity.
His company, Comad, is paid around Dollars 12.50 ( 7.80) a tonne to unload,
bag and shift grain on to lorries. Over the next eight months, his prospects
are encouraging - the World Food Programme (WFP) is looking to ship 170,000
tonnes of food a month, of which the lion's share will go through Djibouti
port.
If, as he claims, Mr Hettam has 65 per cent of the market, he could be
looking at monthly turnover of around Dollars 1m - a healthy sum, even after
costs. "Business is very good," he confides.
He is one of the winners not only from a big food operation, but also the
vicissitudes of war politics. The Ethiopian government has refused to accept
Eritrea's offer to bring aid supplies through the port of Assab, which can
handle 2m tonnes of cargo a year and, before the neighbours' two-year border
war, used to serve around 80 per cent of Ethiopia's needs. The United
Nations - despite clear indications it would prefer to use Assab's
donor-improved facilities - has agreed to focus on the alternatives.
The WFP estimates that 170,000 tonnes of food a month will be needed to
avert disaster in Ethiopia. At present, Djibouti is capable of handling
100,000-110,000 tonnes in its deep-sea berths, while the Somaliland port of
Berbera can take around 25,000 tonnes. That leaves a shortfall of
35,000-45,000 tonnes a month.
To fill that, the WFP has embarked on a Dollars 2.7m port improvement
project. In order to keep the supplies flowing south, the WFP plans to bring
in 400 lorries from abroad, adding to its own fleet of up to 550 in
Ethiopia. The organisation will also spend several million dollars on roads.
It will be a tight operation, with little room for error. It is also big
business. On average, delivering food from its point of origin to a hungry
Ethiopian costs Dollars 250 per tonne. Multiply that by an expected 1.35m
tonnes of food over eight months, and that makes almost Dollars 340m dollars
in transport alone.
But the operation does raise questions. By developing Ethiopia's alternative
supply route, one could argue the UN has become an agent of Addis Ababa's
aim of isolating Eritrea. One impetus to end the war - Ethiopia's difficulty
in finding an alternative port - may have lessened.
Trevor Rowe of the WFP says the impact of the programme will be small and
will in no way prop up the Addis government. Others suggest it may even have
the opposite effect: one of Ethiopia's aims in the war has been to capture
Assab, they say. Now it may not need to.