The Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE), the state-owned policy bank established to provide development financing, has suffered a mammoth loss of 1.7 billion Br from its operations during the first three-quarters of 2018/19. This is an amount never recorded in the history of the country's financial industry. The loss is comparable to the gross profits recorded two years ago by six private banks.

More than half of the loss was reported in the third quarter of this year, reaching 981.1 million Br, revealing that the Bank is in deep water and unable to recover massive loans it has been advancing. DBE's financial and performance report was released two weeks ago during a two-day meeting held inside the conference hall of the Ministry of Trade & Industry on Marshal Tito Road. The management board, under Haileyesus Bekele, described the Bank's performance as "satisfactory." It credited DBE's recovery of close to 1.6 billion Br of the 2.2 billion Br outstanding the bank had advanced in project and lease financing during the period.

A closer look at its books, however, shows a result that is all but encouraging, for the unprecedented loss is attributed to provisions held to secure bad loans and advances, amounting to 17 billion Br.