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The Lease Board of the Addis Abeba City Caretaker
Administration this week will decide whether the 50
plots designated for the construction of hotel
complexes should be leased to investors through bid
or negotiation. The Board is expected to discuss the
criteria with which investors will be granted the
plots and set a pace they should be putting on the
work evaluating their capacities.
The Prime Minister's Office ordered the City
Administration to prepare plots suitable for the
construction of 50 hotels and the latter has
discerned the plots.
A letter sent to the City Administration signed by
Berhanu Adelo, head of the PM's Office, stipulated
that vast plots belonging to public agencies should
be identified and taken over so that they would be
used to curb the shortage of hotels in the city.
Sources at the Addis Abeba Land Development and
Administration Authority (AALDAA) told Fortune
that, in accordance with the letter, engineers
of the Authority have chosen the 50 plots.
Twenty plots parcelled for the first phase of the
project are already identified; the plots include
extra spaces in the premises of the Ministry of
Mines and Energy (MoME), located off the road from
Megenagna to CMC, Quality and Standards Authority (QSAE),
the Civil Aviation Authority on South Africa Street
and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development (MoARD) in Kazanchis.
The hotel expansion project will be undertaken in
two phases; 15 to 20 houses in the first phase and
the balance in the second phase. The government
focused on holdings of its agencies in the first
phase of the projects as it will not require
evictions and compensation payments, for it will be
held on plots secured from state agencies.
The second phase of the project, which will be
carried out in shanty villages that need renewal,
requires compensation payment.
An investor would be given 3,000sqm to 5,000sqm of
plot as long as he has the capacity to erect a
three-star and above hotel, sources disclosed.
A Lease Board official told Fortune that the
transferring would be made once the Board makes a
decision on how the process.
The metropolis has under 5,000 bedrooms in its
various hotels that are up to the required standards
where it should have had 10,000, according to a
study by the Ministry of Works and Urban Development
(MoWUD). Though there are around 200 hotels in the
city, those that meet the standard are below 100.
Arkebe Oqubay, state minister of MoWUD, had told
Fortune two weeks ago that the government has
envisaged alleviating the city's stark shortage of
good quality hotels.
After a decision is made on the terms of the
transfer, the plots will totally be granted to
private investors; local and foreign investors and
those that visit the country for the Millennium.
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