Enjoying the benefits of
the controversial directive issued by the Federal Transport Authority (FTA), 19
out of the 81 companies and individuals that applied for fuel truck importation
permits started receiving their licences from the Authority last week.
According to the Directive,
the time set for the issuance of permits was from September 19 to 29, 2006, but
the FTA only started giving out the permits as of October 18.
Of the companies that
qualified for permission to import 25 fuel trucks, the one that made it to the
A-list was Marathon Transport Plc.
According to an FTA staff
member, Marathon was in fact the one company that met all the requirements
better than any of the other applicants, without a single feature left
unfulfilled. The Company was co-founded by Tsega Assamere and eight other
shareholders in August 2006.
Dashen Bank S.C
and Barclaycard Kenya are deep into a dispute over who legitimately
has the right to be Ethiopia's Visa card service provider.
For more than 30
years, Barclaycard services only existed at Ethiopian Airlines and
the stores run by the Ethiopian Tourist Trade Enterprise. But that
changed six years ago, when Barclaycard Kenya began being
represented in Ethiopia by CcSI.
Since then, CcSI
has been offering VISA, MasterCard, American Express and JCB card
services. Today, CcSI has over 70 commercial outlets that deal in
credit card services, 34 of which are active in using the point of
sales (POS) terminals that CcSI installed.
What business
has brought Airbus’ A380, the largest aircraft ever, to Addis Abeba,
as its first appearance in an African sky last week, many wonder?
Its test pilot, Etienne Tarnowski (right) cites the need to check
engine behaviour and performance under extreme weather of high
altitude such as in Addis, 2,500m above sea level. However, Addis is
not the only place in the world with an airport located at such
altitude. It should not be surprising if Airbus executives are in a
constant battle to get attention from Ethiopian authorities to break
a monopoly held by their archrival, the American Boeing, with
Ethiopian Airlines for over half a century. With their desire to
come back next month with an offer of a new model – the long range
and wide body A350-XWB – they surely got the attention they crave
from the Board Chairman of the Ethiopian Airlines. Mr. Tarnowski was
showing the A380 cockpit to Minister of Foreign Affairs Seyoum
Mesfin and Junadin Sado (left), minister of Transport and
Communications, also one of the Directors of the Board of
Ethiopian.
Araya Zerihun, general manager of Kebire Enterprise, passed away on
Friday, October 20, after suffering a sudden heart attack, aigaforum
website reported.
After coming back from the United States in the early 1990s, Araya
served the Tigray Development Association (TDA) as chairman. He left
the organization in early 2000, to join Sheik Al-Amoudi’s group of
companies; he was instrumental in the establishment of MAA Garment,
in Mekelle, 780Km north of Addis.
Diplomatic
Crisis Upstages EU Horn of Africa Plan
The announcement
on Friday, October 20, of plans for the European Union (EU) to work
closely with the seven nations of the Horn of Africa to defuse
regional conflicts and prevent them spreading to other parts of
Africa and the Middle East was seriously disrupted by the revelation
of the expulsion of two European diplomats from Ethiopia.
The strategy,
more of a diagnosis of the region's problems than a cure, aims to
improve economic and political integration between Djibouti,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and the transitional
government in Somalia.
The Federal
Transport Authority (FTA) issued a directive last week which
requires that cross country public transport vehicles include
standardized services.
The
requirements, released on October 16, 2006, include a microphone, a
tape recorder with speakers, a mobile phone, seat numbers, clean
curtains, and a display board to monitor the vehicles
destinations.
Also, the
driver and assistant will have the same color uniform, including a
tie and cap. And for safety precaution, a first aid kit and fire
extinguisher are required to be put in a visible place.
The Lease Board
of the Addis Abeba Caretaker Administration, chaired by Berhane
Deressa, decided to impose an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
on investment projects that requested land from the city
administration last month.
The Board
requested that the Addis Abeba Investment Authority and the Land
Development and Administration Authority implement the decision
beginning October 11, 2006.
The Ethio-Djibouti
Railways Enterprise is going through with its 114Km railway
rehabilitation project with Spanish INECO Spt in final steps to
conclude negotiations for supervision and administration work at a
cost of 2.2 million euros. The two parties are expected to sign an
agreement early this week.
At the end of
last month, the Enterprise awarded CONSTA, an Italian company, the
actual rehabilitation work for 40 million euros.
The Ethio-Horti
Share Company (EHSC) which is formed by 30 floriculture companies
bought 800tn of fertilizer worth 500,000 dollars from Yara, a
multi-national fertilizer producer, and 700,000 dollars worth of
chemicals from German supplier, SYNGENTA.
The fertilizer
and chemicals to be used for the floriculture industry partially
arrived into the country last week.
The
floriculture industry has become the favourite industry and one of
the prime sectors supported by the Ethiopian government.
ANALYSIS-A New
Found Coziness Between Chamber and Government
Tadelech Dalecha,
state minister for Culture and Tourism, was not happy to see the
Addis Abeba Chamber of Commerce & Sectorial Association “think
small” on its new 200 million Br international trade center,
possibly to be built on a vast tract of plot located opposite the
CMC residential complex.
She wanted to see
the centre include a facility where diverse cultures of Ethiopia and
“even Africa” are promoted. She made the suggestion at a luncheon
the Chamber hosted for government officials on October 12, 2006, at
the Hilton.
One year after having taken back the Abule Basuma Lodge from Iacona
Touring Plc, the Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Union (CETU) has
now received four interested applicants in response to the tender it
issued to lease the Lodge, located in the Oromia Region, 212Km
southeast of Addis Abeba.
Three
cross-country bus stations located at different exit points of Addis
Abeba and built for 19.6 million Br have been sitting idle for over
a year and half.
Although the
five-year construction of these stations was finalized in early
2005, both the offices as well as the compound have been sealed off
and left unused. The stations were built by the Addis Abeba City
Transport Office under the Federal Transport Authority (FTA) since
last year.
Lingering Payment Dispute Between Defence Ministry and Bus Assoc.
A dispute has arisen between the Ministry of National Defence (MoND)
and Africa Alem Public Transport Bus Owners Association over
payments for transportation services rendered by the Association
last year.
The reason for the dispute comes from the Association’s claim that
it is owed 107, 755 Br by the MoND, for the transportation services
it has been providing its soldiers from June 2005 to July 2006.
As the price of
fuel increases on the international oil market, Ethiopia has set its
sights on ethanol and bio-diesel to guarantee the supply of
affordable fuel in the future.
According to a
troubling study that was done by the Ministry of Trade and Industry
(MoTI), the increasing international demand for energy sources does
not guarantee that the international supply will be constant in the
future. The study focused on the two alternatives and their
viability in the country.
The nightclubs of Addis Ababa reveal a thriving sex industry, in
which thousands of skimpily dressed young women trade sexual favours
for cash to survive, putting them at risk of contracting HIV and
spreading the disease.
Extreme poverty has forced many girls into the sex trade. Helen
Chane (not her real name), a grade 10 student aged 17, became a
commercial sex worker after her parents died from AIDS-related
illnesses about a year ago.
Local Director Celebrates Timeless
Ethiopian Storylines
From physics to
talking movies, Tatek Tadesse, director of the locally acclaimed
Ethiopian movie Gudi Fecha, is currently working on yet
another movie project after two years of rest since the release of
his first feature film.
The Return
to Grace,
which is the unofficial title of the movie, is based on the story of
a young Ethiopian architect who is inspired by the long lost kingdom
of Axum and an ancient prophecy that speaks of the resurgence of
this kingdom following the appearance of seven signs. The young
architect, who notices these signals, tries to get people around him
to understand the meaningfulness of what is happening only to be
looked upon as a mad man.
At 2:30pm on
Thursday, October 19, 2006, a handover ceremony between the Indian
Embassy in Ethiopia and the organizers of the Abyssinia Film Awards,
Shakaina Entertainment, took place under the shade of the trees at
Tropical Gardens.
The event
involved the Indian Embassy presenting 20 award sculptures for the
20 final categories that individuals and production companies will
be nominated for during the Abyssinia Film Award event that is to
take place in December 2006.
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.
