Over
4,200 employees working under close to 10 state owned enterprises will be laid
off soon, following a decision by the top level of the government, sources at
the Privatisation and Public Enterprises Supervising Agency (PPESA) disclosed to
Fortune. The new decision will be applied to employees who are over 45
years old and have served their respective companies for 20 years.
This will be the first
massive layoff to be undertaken by the federal government since 1994, according
to an official of the Agency.
Federal government
officials attribute the latest decision to the loss these enterprises have
suffered for the past five years and the inability by the Agency to ensure they
are privatised or given to private companies on a joint venture arrangement.
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Industrial Leases Shift to
Investment Authority, Increase Price
The Addis Abeba city Caretaker Administration (AACCA)Cabinet passed
a decision to handle requests for industrial plots over 5,000sqm
through the City Investment Authority and to increase the lease
price of land.
Sheriff Keri,
head of the Office of the Mayor, distributed a directive to the
concerned bodies for the implementation of the decision.
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Central Bank Gives Green Light to Two
New Banks
The National
Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), a federal agency responsible to regulate the
financial sector, has given a green light for promoters of two
commercial banks under formation, Oromia International Bank and
Access Bank. When they become fully operational, these banks will be
additions to the eight private banks active in the market today.
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Bereket
Simon, public relations advisor to the Prime Minister with a
ministerial portfolio and chairman of the Board of Directors of
Dashen Brewery, told an inaugural event in the town of Gondar,
738Km west of Addis, that the factory is to provide a grant
amounting to 10 million Br in order to support small and medium
scale businesses, focusing on women and youth. “Endeavour and
ANDM have an interest in seeing this investment bring prosperity
to the people of the Amhara region,” said Bereket during the
inauguration of the expansion of Dashen Brewery, on April 24,
2007. Launching the operation in 2001 after consuming an
investment of 350 million Br, Dashen was originally owned by
Endeavour, an endowment company of the region, Tikur Abay
Transport, and Ambasel Trading (both subsidiary companies of the
first) and BHI International, a French interest that had owned
40pc. Dashen Brewery, now fully owned by Endeavour and its
subsidiaries, has undergone major expansion at a cost of 99
million Br; one third of this amount was obtained from the
Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) for working capital. The
expansion is believed to enhance the Brewery’s production
capacity to 700,000 hectolitres, more than 100pc of what it used
to have prior to its expansion, making it the second largest
brewery in the country next to BGI-Ethiopia that has a 1.2
million hectolitre capacity.
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NEWS
Addis Catering
Receives Land Despite Ethiopian Objection
Originally, the
idea was to set up an international standared catering facility jointly
owned by the national carrier and the Saudi business tycoon, Sheikh
Mohammed Ali Al-Amoudi. Differences over a disputed share distribution
and what the new company should be named, brought the negotation to an
end a few months back. A solo bid by Addis International Catering, a
company laregly owned by Sheikh Al-Amoudi, to acquire a vast plot inside
the airport to build the facility has brought a strong protest from
Girma Wake, CEO of the Ethiopian Airlines, a company that uses
80pc of the catering services from Addis Abeba, reported ISSAYAS MEKURIA,
FORTUNE STAFF WRITER.
Trans Ethiopia,
exclusive agent of Pirelli Tyre in Ethiopia and a subsidiary of the Endowment
Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT), laid-off 124 employees from its
Mekele and Adama branches.
The company cited
severe losses and a restructuring as the cause of the layoffs, which took place
in two waves. Especially targeting mechanics and drivers, employees received
three letters signed by the manager of the company, Million G.Tsadik.
The
National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) and Berta Construction PLC have
found themselves in yet another of a series of disputes regarding
final payments and handover of the Bank’s headquarters.
Located on Sudan Street, on the route from the Ministry of National
Defence (MoND) to the Ministry of Health,(W.H) NBE took provisional
acceptance of the 11 storey building and began using it last year.
BASF Group, the
world’s leading chemical company, has yet to receive orders for a new
and more durable brand of mosquito nets that it is planning to launch in
Ethiopia.
At its launching
ceremony held at the Addis Abeba Hilton on April 26, 2007, the company
announced that the mosquito nets it would be supplying contain an
insecticide known as Fendozin, which knocks down, kills, or repels
mosquitoes as they come in contact with the net. The company also stated
that the netting would be effective after more than 20 washes, unlike
the nets that are currently available in the country.
In order to implement the
latest compensation directive, the Addis Abeba City Caretaker Administration (AACCA)
is undertaking an upgrade of its existing IT compensation programme to include
current estimated compensation that is given to homeowners and businesses that
are relocated for development.
The Oromia Regional Lease
Board is expected to pass a decision this week on the fate of 400 companies that
received land on the outskirts of Addis Abeba, but who have not begun
construction work on their assigned plots.
The Oromia Regional
Investment Commission organised a team of experts who conducted audits on lots
given to 954 companies. The audits focused on whether or not those companies had
launched some sort of construction on their plots.
The Board of Directors of
the Addis Abeba Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Association (AACCSA) has passed
a decision to release its Secretary General, Semunesh Dimitros, and her Deputy,
Fekadu Moges.
The Board assigned Teferi
Asfaw, head of the Public Relations and Media Department, as acting deputy
secretary general to run the Chamber as of April 18, 2007. A letter dated on the
same day and copied to banks and the concerned chamber bodies stated that the
signatory powers of Semunesh and Fekadu had been lifted. The letter was signed
by the President of the Chamber, Eyesuswork Zafu.
The shipment
inspection agreement on Chinese products imported to Ethiopia signed
on April 2, 2006 has failed to see successful implementation. The
China Entry Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau Certificate (CIQ)
was supposed to have been awarded to all shipments of goods leaving
Chinese ports and coming into Ethiopia.
Despite the government's
claims that the agriculture sector is healthy the World Bank (WB) is to release
a document on the state of the Ethiopian economy on Monday, May 7, 2007, that
states that there has been a lack of productivity growth in the agricultural
sector, which forms the centre of the government's development strategy.
Ethiopia is
unlikely to gain entry to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) without making
meaningful commitments to telecommunications liberalisation, according to an
assessment of the service sector presented by the American company, Nathan
Associates Inc.
The Ethiopian
Telecommunication Agency (ETA) is the regulatory body of the sector, founded in
1996, and accordingly, the paper suggests empowering it with the capacity to
license and regulate multiple operators and service providers, to regulate the
economic, legal, and technical aspects of interconnection and pass decisions as
a government body independent of political interference.
Limited Resources, Time Create
Challenge for Clean Millennium
With the
latest move by the Addis Abeba Millennium Council to eradicate 50pc of the waste
in the city by the Millennium celebrations, more than six agencies under the
City Caretaker Administration have begun the scramble to implement the strategy.
New Satellite
Phone, Expanded Coverage to Ethiopia
Thuraya Satellite
Telecommunication, a company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE),
inaugurated a new integrated sales showroom for satellite phones on May 3, 2007.
Planning to work in
collaboration with the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC), the
showroom offers mobile handsets with satellite services.
New Separate
Regulator Hoped to Increase Effectiveness
The Addis
Abeba City Trade, Industry and Development Bureau is under preparations to
establish an autonomous institute that would monitor and regulate old and new
market centres across the capital.
The Addis Abeba City
Revenues Agency, formed after the restructuring of the Addis Abeba City
Administration in 2003/2004, implemented an Integrated Revenue Management System
(SIRM) programme funded by the City Administration.
Supreme Court Drops Appeal against
Yohannes W. Gabriel
The Federal Ethics and
Ant-Corruption Commission was disappointed yet again, after losing the appeal
that it brought to the Supreme Court. The decision follows a previous ruling by
the Federal High Court that the prosecution lacked sufficient evidence to
support the corruption charge so that it was unnecessary for the defendant to
present his case.
In order to curb the
inflation in Gondar, the town’s administration has decided to allow Abrar Hassen
Ahmed General Trading, a private company, to sell imported edible oil through
the Kebelle network at low prices.
Since the decision was
passed, the company has supplied 2,000lt of edible oil through three Kebelles.
The company charged 24,000 Br for the entire shipment.
The European Film Festival
and Tour opened on Thursday, May 3, 2007, at the National Theatre with a German
film, The Edukators (2004). Introduced by German Ambassador, Claas Dieter
Knoop (PhD); European Union's (EU) Representative to Ethiopia, Timothy Clarke;
and a representative from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Film Festival
is a month long celebration of European, and for the first time in the event's
decade long history, Ethiopian cinema.
Rasta's
Paradise,
a documentary film by Parine Jaddo, premiered at City Hall on
Saturday, May 5, 2007. The film aims to connect the historical and
spiritual Rastafari movement to its local context in Ethiopia.
Combining musical performances, interviews and shots of the scenic
Ethiopian landscape, Jaddo explicates the movement as it exists here
and now in Ethiopia as a living embodiment of its philosophy.
