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In a few weeks, Addis Abeba will get its new
administration; perhaps a refreshing experience
considering that for the first time in five years,
it will have a council and its 138 legislators who
nearly all come from the ruling party, a cabinet
installed from these legislators and a team of
management.
I
recommend that it is very important that the new
administration considers policy alternatives for
providing housing, and for addressing issues of
unemployment, water supplies, sanitation and
transportation. These issues should claim central
stage and are so fundamental that they are
potentially able to create social crises if poorly
addressed.
The housing problem is the major problem, it could
mainly be addressed by constructing additional
houses. Since its inception in 2004, the Addis Abeba
Housing Development Project Office, under Arkebe
Oukubay’s administration, has given due emphasis to
the problem of residential houses in the city; it
has planned to tremendously mitigate the problem by
constructing 225,000 houses before the end of 2010.
However, poor implementation capacity observed
during the past few years clearly indicate that this
ambitious plan could remain simply on paper. In the
2005/06 budget year, for instance, the actual
performance was less by 40pc. This figure rose to
100pc the following year.
These facts tell us two basic flaws of the outgoing
administration: Poor compatibility of plans against
resources at hand and gross negligence of
accountability. Taking implementation failure to the
extent of 100pc as excusable (or rather a norm) must
be very depressing.
There ought to be lessons to learn. The new
administration should revise the plans developed if,
indeed, they are within its reach.
Implementation capacity is definitely the most
fundamental lesson the new cabinet should learn
from. If plans from above continue to be marred by
poor implementation from below, unparallel changes
in various factors such as population growth may
create a kind of public despair. However, there can
only be effective demand for the construction of
houses if it is backed by growth in the income and
savings of the potential beneficiaries.
The high unemployment rate in the city was 32.1pc, a
figure up by six per cent from the country’s average
in the same year, according to the Central
Statistics Agency’s report released in March 2008,
is another pressing issue. The desire to own
properties by the youth, which constitutes the
largest share of the unemployed, can only be
achieved by creating employment opportunities that
enables to boost in income. Instilling a saving
culture among this group of people can also help
augment their purchasing power.
Nevertheless, the rationale of addressing the
unemployment issue should be appreciated from the
perspective of the social problems. With more youth
added into the army of the unemployed, it may not be
too long before a tranquil Addis gets restless.
Rapid growth of population, by 15pc in Addis Abeba
as opposed to the 2.8pc national average, investment
and rising per capita demand have put intense
pressure on the city’s ability to deliver water. It
is one of the key issues the new administration must
deal with. It is clear that the existing dam
projects and the ground water projects available are
not enough. The declining ratio of population with
access to safe water obviously evidences this.
Better control of the existing supplies and the
development of new sources are the available options
to curb the shortage of water in the city.
Encouraging the various industries in the city,
which understandably consume a large percentage of
the city’s water supply, to reuse the water they
consume should therefore be at the new cabinet’s
policy recipe. This can be complemented by
instilling an awareness of water conservation among
the general public.
Embarking on projects of sinking more and deeper
wells which are designed to alleviate the water
shortage in the short run without taking heed to the
long term solutions can expose the problem of over
pumping aquifers with ground water being utilized
faster than it is replenished.
Researches in advanced nations show that a person
living in developed urban centers may produce as
much as 950Kgs of non-recyclable and reusable solid
waste annually. Out of the several methods of
disposal of solid wastes available, sanitary
land-fill is the main means of disposals in Addis
Abeba. In fact, this is the cheapest and most
satisfactory means. However, with the city’s
geography extending to the periphery and the housing
projects designed to be constructed in the outskirts
of the city producing more of these, dwindling
spaces are left for land-fill due to the burgeoning
construction activities in the city.
This will make it difficult to get a suitable land
within the economic range of the sources of the
wastes. Researches undertaken show that collection
and transportation costs account for 75pc of the
total cost of solid waste management. The city has,
therefore, to adopt a widespread recycling program
in which people separate the valuable components of
their refuse before the remainder is transported to
a local dump.
Liquid wastes emanating from residential houses and
factories are another source of poor hygiene and
water pollution in the city. A well developed system
of disposal of liquid waste should therefore be part
of any new establishments and the existing system
should be improved or controlled better.
It would be an incomplete assessment to close the
fundamental issues of the city without mentioning
the public transport system. Public transport
shortage, especially of the common carriers, has
been an issue for so long in the capital. And new
buses have been added to the exiting stock of cars
in service. However, as much as it contributes to
the rise in the number of cars, it has contributed
to the inefficiency of the transport system in
general. A single-minded focus in alleviating the
shortage of transportation would not solve the basic
problem. New routes need to be constructed and
alternative transport services, like the railway
system, should be incorporated into the overall
transport system.
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