|
A restructuring study underway by the Ministry of
Works and Urban Development (MoWUD) and leading
officials at the Rented Houses Agency (RHA) is to
layoff over 2,350 of the latter’s 2,800 employees.
The shake-up, which is in the final stages, will
squeeze the 33-year-old Agency into a single office
under the Ministry.
The committee undertaking the study presented their
final recommendations to Arkebe Oqubay, state
minister of MoWUD, and Enwey Gebremedhin, Agency
director under a state ministerial portfolio, last
Monday.
One of the three subcommittees studied what the
overall restructuring should look like while another
dealt with the Agency’s plans to set out in real
estate development. The third subcommittee
deliberated on arrangements by which houses under
the Agency should be administered.
One of the proposed recommendations of the committee
is to outsource security and cleaning works to a
private company through contract or give the
responsibility to the tenants themselves. If this
proposal is approved, around 1,000 janitors and
security workers are feared to loose their jobs,
sources disclosed.
Outsourcing of housing repair works is also a
component and has brought anxiety among the 600
workers that may lose their jobs. The most drastic
turnabout follows RHA’s two-month old plan to enter
real estate ventures after 17 years of absence from
this work. The study recommends contractors
undertake the ventures.
Rental payments by tenants will also be collected
through arrangements with a bank if the proposal is
given the go-ahead; the 100 current employees
undertaking this duty would be laid-off.
“We know that a team of managers drawn from the
Agency and the Ministry are working on RHA’s
restructuring,” Haregawi Kebede, president of the
Agency’s workers union, told Fortune. “We are
under threat because our request for explanation is
ignored by the director.”
RHA was established a year after a proclamation that
confiscated urban land and extra houses was declared
in 1975 after the Derg’s ascension to power. It was
given the mandate to takeover and rent houses for
100 Br a month.
The Agency now collects rental payments, refurbishes
and privatises houses, grossing 50 million Br in
annual profit and has stayed as an autonomous organ
despite tenants’ complaints with the services it
renders.
RHA along with the Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA)
are accountable to MoWUD, which is structured in
four bureaus, two offices and an institution.
“RHA needs restructuring,” Arkebe Oqubay had told
Fortune a month ago. “A decision will be made on
the study in two months time.”
The government has been maintaining that the
Agency’s output compared to the resources at its
disposal is low as it has a huge workforce.
RHA finalised 366 houses and took over 815 houses
confiscated by the military regime by the time it
was created. Until 1991, the Agency invested 524.5
million Br on the construction and repair of houses
and had 25,374 houses and 25 hostels under its
supervision until 1993. However, the Agency lost
5,772 houses following the decision passed by the
Council of Ministers to transfer houses located in
regional states except those in Addis Abeba and Dire
Dawa.
RHA lost part of the remaining 19,602 houses due to
the demolishing works that have been carried out in
Addis Abeba which dwindled houses under its
supervision to 18,260. In 2006/07 alone, the Agency
managed to collect 160 million Br from tenants.
Nonetheless, the government has a plan to liquidate
the Agency after it privatises all houses under its
supervision.
An expert argues that the Agency does not have
full-fledged information about the houses. It was
just two months ago that it floated a tender to hire
a bidder that would count the number of houses it
administers.
“The restructuring is indeed necessary,” the sector
expert told Fortune. “However, the fate of
the employees should be given due attention.”
|
