The recent firing of the president of Bank of Abyssinia, Kebede
Temesgen, sparked behind-the-scene politics that hit deep into the
alliance created by the seven largest shareholders of the Bank who
control 51pc. From left: Getu (opposes the dismissal),
Bezuayehu (wants resignation), Menwyelet, Weldher, Abebaw (supports
the dismissal) and Nega. They are six of the G7 members emerging
from a shareholders meeting held at the Hilton Hotel in December
2005. They had successfully manoeuvred the appointment of a board of
directors that they said was very professional. Consisting of a mass
of lawyers, it is led by former State Minister of Infrastructure,
Philipos W. Mariam.
A government
office responsible for returning property illegally seized during
the Derg regime has had to extend its mandate due to complications
caused by an overwhelming use of falsified documents by claimants.
An expert in
the Project Office, part of the Privatization and Public Enterprises
Supervising Agency (PPESA), said that the office had planned to
close its operations in the 2006-2007 fiscal year after concluding
pending cases. But with the recurrent cases of forgeries, it will be
impossible to do so.
The world’s
largest aircraft, the European Airbus A380, will be arriving
tomorrow, October 16, at Bole International Airport, at 4:30pm,
aviation authorities have confirmed. It will be arriving from Oman.
A380’s coming
to Addis will be its first appearance in Africa where it is
scheduled to be staying for four days to conduct a series of high
altitude tests.
“The test
flight of this aircraft proves our airport’s international
competitiveness and its ability to handle a huge and modern
aircraft,” said a press statement issued by the Ethiopian Airports
Enterprise, on Friday.
A380-861 is the
largest commercial aircraft the world has ever seen; it has a net
weight of 560tn, and can carry up to 400tns as well as 10 to 20tn of
fuel. With its double-deck, as high as a seven-storey building, A380
is designed to carry 555 passengers in a three class configuration.
Frustrated with
the lack of dialogue with their government clients, grade one
construction contractors across the country split from Ethiopian
Construction Contractors Association (ECCA) last week and founded
the Ethiopian Grade One Contractors Association (EGOCA).
This new
Association applied to the Ministry of Justice for certification in
mid September 2006 and received it on October 12, 2006. In industry
regulation, grade one contractors are those entitled to oversee any
kind of construction projects.
Businesses
scheduled to be relocated due to the Sheraton expansion project in
the Arada District will be appealing to the project’s office
requesting an explanation to why they were not given the forms to
fill when residents are already getting registered and beginning the
process of finding alternative living sites.
Another 50
businesses in the Kirkos District appealed to their District office
with similar pleas two weeks ago. The businesses would like to get
answers before demolition and relocation work begins.
The Ethiopian
Telecommunication Corporation (ETC) has decided to reimburse its
customers the money they were overcharged due to billing errors
caused by a new billing system.
The error
caused by a malfunction in the Customer Care and Billing System the
corporation procured for 23 million Br last year caused much
disappointment with the Corporation as well as serious disputes
between ETC and its clients.
Tripped up by a procedural snag in the tender process to find an IT
consultant that would be responsible for drawing up the country’s
master information communication technology (ICT) plan, the final
phase of awarding the project to one of the five contending
companies has been suspended.
In August 2006, the Ethiopian Information Communication Technology
Development Agency (EICTDA) issued a call for expressions of
interest to be submitted by IT consultancy firms that will be
responsible to draw out a master plan that paves the way for the
government’s desire to install a nationwide network connecting all
federal offices.
In an effort to
privilege the health industry in its land allocation decisions, the
Addis Abeba City Caretakers Administration is planning to lease land
to the health sector strictly through negotiations, according to
Lease Board sources.
In order to take
on its huge responsibility of responding to land demands from
companies, private citizens, and government organisations, the Lease
Board divides its allocations into four different methods; auction,
negotiations, gift and zoned allotment.
The Addis Ababa
Caretakers Administration announced the first auction round for
bidders interested in leasing land for residence, business, industry
and mixed-use purposes.
The
announcement advised that winning bidders would have to submit a
20pc advance payment by cash payment order.
Before bidding,
bidders would also have to show a guaranteed bank account, to be
placed in aescrow, to prove a willing capacity to work on the plot
according to its zoning.
Causing a written
protest from private traders, the Ministry of Finance and Economic
Development (MoFED) banned the export of scrap metals beginning in
early October 2006, and has set a fixed selling price at all
government institutions, suspending the usual practice of auctioning
surplus metal.
As per a letter
sent by MoFED in September 2006 and signed by its State Minister,
Mamo Gito, the ban is due to a great need of reinforcement bars to
be used in housing projects nationwide. With these projects,
companies involved in the production of construction metal materials
will need as much scrap metal as possible.
Defending the
privileged status of the Ethiopian Tourist Trading Enterprise (ETTE)
and its 800 employees, the main tourism and hotel labour association
in Ethiopia has protested in writing to the Ministry of Revenue (MoR)
against permission given Country Trading Plc to open a duty free
shop at the Bole International airport.
On September
13, 2006, the Tourism, Hotels and General Services Employees
Association Industry Federation wrote a letter to the MoR stating
that the only body that has the right to give duty free selling
privileges in Ethiopia is the Enterprise.
In one of the
first major decisions taken by the current city Lease Board, around
2,700 Ethiopians living outside the country who formed housing
associations are to be given 150sqm of land out of which 50sqm will
be free from lease payments. These potential residents, who live
all over the world, organized themselves in 143 associations, each
one having between 10 and 32 people.
These
associations will take part in a lottery on October 25, 2006 to
receive specific plots of land near the CMC housing complex, 10Km
outside the city.
Amid local furore
over its plans to start its own air shipment service, the Boeing 747
airplane leased by Sher Ethiopia Plc for the transportation of
flower cargo from Ethiopia to Europe did not arrive on Tuesday,
October 10, 2006 as previously planned by the Company.
Sher Ethiopia, a
flower farming company, was established by a group of Dutch
investors, which are currently working on 450ht of land around Ziway,
163km from Addis Abeba. On September 26, the company sent out
e-mails to 77 companies working in the floriculture sector,
announcing that it would be bringing a plane to transport flower
freight from Addis Abeba to Belgium twice a week. The freight plane
was leased from the Dutch company, Laudan Airways.
The Ethiopian
Press Agency (EPA), the state owned press publisher, moved last week
from the Ministry of Information (MoI) building, where it had been
located for the past five years, to the new LEX Plaza building, on
Haile GebreSelassie Avenue.
Sources from LEX
Plaza told Fortune that the Agency will have offices on the
sixth, seventh and eighth floor of the building with a darkroom,
restaurant and storage room located in the basement. The EPA will be
leasing the 2,174sqm of space for 186.25 Br per square meter.
Sources said that the EPA signed a five-year contract.
Hoping to take
advantage of the local building boom, Sheba Plastic Industry Plc.,
sister company of Sheba Steel Mills Plc. of Pakistan, has received
5,000sqm of land in the Kaliti Akaki industrial zone from the Addis
Abeba Administration to manufacture PVC and plastic pipes used
mainly for large construction projects.
The Addis Abeba
Investment Authority Industrial Zone Administration gave Sheba
Plastic a 60 year lease at 284 Br per square meter, which the
company is expected to pay off in 24 years.
In hopes of
answering complaints by private residents who fear being
short-changed by recent Addis Abeba development and infrastructure
projects, a directive that implements a 2005 proclamation improving
compensation for homeowners displaced by city development is being
prepared by the Ministry of Works and Urban Development (MoWUD)
legal department.
According to an
official from the department, the department is working “day and
night” to prepare the directive that officially implements
proclamation 455/2005 for Council of Ministers’ approval. “We will
do our best to conclude the directive by the second week of
November,” he said.
The inter-clan conflict in Somalia has been a cause of concern
lately, with the emergence of a militant group that is now Supreme
Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS) and put a military challenge to
the Transitional Federal government (TFG) that is now limited in
Badoa. Controlling the capital Mogadishu and much of the southern
parts of Somalia, the group counts much of its international support
from Eritrea, Egypt and Libya, if not Saudi Arabia's wealthy
supporters of the expansion of Wahabism, according to this writer
known as Antony Shaw, a pseudo-name but with an authoritative
analysis of events in Ethiopia and the surrounding countries.
