If anyone among the EPRDFites has a special liking for glossy and modern building complexes, Junadin Sado, minister of Civil Service (MoCS), hardly has an equal, those in the gossip corridor observed. The exception could be Debretsion Gebremichael, former director general of the Ethiopian Information and Communications Technology Development Agency (EICTDA).

The agency has rented one of the newly built structures on Chad Street, near Mexico Square, and is owned by Alta Computec Plc. A few metres from this building, another elegant edifice is located; this one is owned by Alsam Plc and houses the headquarters and floors of Ethiopia’s first commodity exchange.

Its chief, Eleni G. Medhin (PhD), could, perhaps, be a pioneer not only in creating a market but also in refraining from renting old and rundown state owned buildings in favour of private, newly built structures in prime locations. Hers is a quasi-state entity in which the private sector has some involvement.

Junadin was the first minister with a cabinet portfolio to rent a private property, in an area known as Somali Terra, a prime location near Merkato, while he was minister of Information Technology (MoIT). For the many years that his ministry was a commission, it was housed inside a building dating from the Mengistu era, located behind the National Theatre, before it was honoured to move into a glassy building resembling the structures used by dot.com firms in Silicon Valley.

The minister of MoCS is a recently created cabinet portfolio combining the age old Civil Service Commission (housed in an Imperial era building up at Arat Kilo) and the Ministry of Capacity Building (MoCB), headquartered inside one of the royal families’ mansions that had been nationalised by the military, located on Entoto Street adjacent to the US Embassy.

It appears that Junadin has little taste for any of these structures from a distant era, claimed gossip. His ministry is negotiating rent deals with a developer named Mekonnen, a businessman in Merkato, who owns a soon-to-be-completed building on Africa Avenue (Bole Road), near Wollo Sefer.

There are two modern buildings being construction at this site neighbouring Bole Tower. The one owned by Wossen Architects Plc has already been leased to the World Bank (WB), which will move out of Worbek Building soon. The other, of a similar design, will be leased for nine million Birr annually, provided that the deal can be made, claimed gossip.

The wisdom in spending such an amount of taxpayers’ money on renting a ministry in a fancy building will, undoubtedly, expose Minister Junadin to criticism in the gossip corridors. Taxpayers are also paying for the construction of a modern residence for the Prime Minister inside the Menelik Palace compound up at Arat Kilo. The compound’s landscape has fabulously been reworked for the first time, perhaps, in a generation, gossip disclosed.

The administration will be spending close to 82 million Br on this residence, which will incorporate a swimming pool and tennis court as well as guest houses, according to gossip.

A committee of three has been established to follow the construction of the residence. It comprises Azeb Mesfin, an MP and resident of the compound for close to 20 years now; Muktar Khadir, head of the Office of the Prime Minister and secretary of the cabinet; and an individual who is currently following up the landscape work inside the palace, Gossip revealed.