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The size of land found by officials at the
Investment Agency of the Southern Regional State is
much smaller than the 706,000hct they had hoped was
available when the first assessment was conducted a
few years ago.
Regional authorities are keen to find available
plots within their jurisdictions in order to launch
a one-stop-shop service to prospective investors. A
finding after four teams were dispatched across the
State is very sceptical about the availability of
this size of plots, disclosed sources.
“In some areas, we assumed 10,000hct of land is
available,” an official from the Agency told
Fortune. “What we finally get is less than
1,000hct.”
This will seriously affect the State’s ability to
implement what it has approved as its private
investment development programme; it aims to
facilitate allocation of plots to prospective
investors, beginning at the end of the last
Ethiopian fiscal year, finalising land related
issues on zonal levels, after obtaining investment
licenses. There are 13 zones and eight special
woredas in the region.
The number of days it takes to get plots, especially
in rural areas, is based on the capacity of the
zonal administrators, according to Kidane Abay,
acting head of the Promotion and Potentials Study
Department of the Agency.
“The recent assessment will bring a speedy response
whenever an investor made a request for a plot,”
Kidane said. “The investor will complete their
request for plots at the same place where they
acquire investment licenses.”
It is to achieve this desire that the regional
authorities established a steering committee,
chaired by Shiferaw Shigute, president of the
Southern Regional State. The committee will be
reviewing a study produced by four teams, comprising
experts from investment, water, agriculture and
agricultural research bureaus under the regional
administration.
Of the four teams created, three have already
deployed to rural areas of the region, while one is
delayed due to transportation problems, and will
move to urban areas next week, sources disclosed to
Fortune.
However, experts in the region are afraid they may
not deliver good news to the steering committee;
their initial assessments revealed that there exists
a huge gap between what they have seen on the
benchmark information provided by the Agency, and
the reality on the ground.
“Our plan was very ambitious,” an Agency official
admitted.
The Agency’s assumed area of land available for
investment even contradicts with another bureau
under the regional administration.
A
bulletin published by the Promotion and Potentials
Study Department, in January 2007, claims that there
is 450,000hct of land available for investment
purposes in the region. The bulletin refers South
Omo as a zone that contains most of the available
land, 308,000hct. The Agency, however, has put in
its benchmark that there is 350,000hct to be made
available in the region.
The Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples
Regional State covers an area of 110, 931sqkm, which
accounts for 10pc of the country’s size.
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