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The Adama (Nazareth) City Administration
Cabinet is once again to begin granting residential
plots to the city residents that do not own houses.
After months of abandonment, this is the first time
for the Cabinet installed in April 2007 to address
the land issue.
This Cabinet came into being after former members
were removed from office, accused of using biased
methods to award plots.
To avoid the administrative bottlenecks that were
experienced within the previous administration, a
formal letter has been written to kebeles of the
city, as the task has to start from the grassroots
level, Sisay Negash, mayor of Adama told Fortune.
In addition to the current Cabinet, the 14 kebeles
of the town have also had new administrations
appointed; the previous administrations of the
respective institutions were removed from their
positions and replaced on March 14 and 15, 2007,
around the same time as the appointment of the new
Cabinet.
A
letter the City Cabinet wrote ordered each kebele to
screen a list of 400 people applying for plots and
send it to the Cabinet. According to the Cabinet’s
decision, the 400 people should be verified as
residents of Adama. Moreover, it is a must that
these people do not have homes and they should have
the capacity to construct houses on the plot of land
that they are granted.
Furthermore, a committee has been established under
the auspices of the City Cabinet which checks
whether the stated people would qualify for the
grant, Sisay told Fortune.
In connection with the Millennium, the City Cabinet
had also promised to grant plots through lease to
the Diaspora that return for the celebration of the
Millennium. However, extremely concerned with the
number of people that claimed to have come from the
Diaspora, the Cabinet issued a letter, signed by
Mesfin Negewo, general manager of the city on August
10, 2007, which stated that the grant has been
suspended until September 2000.
Baffled with the Cabinet’s decision, Abdulkerim
Tabit, who for the last 17 years has been living in
Canada and the United States (US) told Fortune
that he is extremely displeased with the latest
decision.
“I had planned to move my family back to our
homeland after two years, having built a residence
in Adama,” he told Fortune.
Sources told Fortune that Hajj
returnee pilgrims and Ethiopians coming from
Djibouti, Somalia and Arab countries burdened the
record office of the City Administration forcing the
Cabinet to terminate its promise.
Sisay told Fortune
that the City Administration has prepared land
paying 7.5 million Br compensation to the
agricultural kebeles located on the outskirts of the
town, in every direction for the Diaspora who would
return home to live and invest on their soil.
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