For more than five decades, Ethiopia has carried one of its most unresolved urban injustices: the nationalization of private houses under Proclamation No. 47 of 1975. What began as a revolutionary measure under the Derg has remained an open wound for thousands of property owners in Addis Ababa and other cities who say they were never properly compensated for what the state took from them.
The issue is not difficult to understand. If a government takes private property for public use, it must pay just compensation. That is a basic principle of fairness and a cornerstone of any lawful property system. Yet in Ethiopia, many old government houses were not built by the state. They were built by private citizens, then transferred to government ownership under a law that promised compensation but failed to deliver it. Fifty years later, that promise still has not been honored.
That failure matters because property rights are not a minor technical matter. They are tied to dignity, security, inheritance, investment, and trust in government. When people build houses with their own labor and resources, they do so with the expectation that the law will protect what they have created. When the state later takes those homes and keeps collecting rent without settling the original claim, the result is not just legal confusion. It is injustice.
Proclamation No. 47 of 1975 nationalized so-called “extra houses”, Urban buildings and transferred ownership of urban rental properties to the government. It also forced owners to register and hand over those houses within 30 days. The law abolished the private landlord-tenant relationship and replaced it with state control through the Ministry of Public Works and Housing or urban cooperatives. In return, it expressly promised fair compensation.
That compensation was never fully paid.
Instead, the government continued to collect rent from the houses for decades. In effect, it benefited from the very property it had taken while leaving the original owners waiting for payment that never came. That is the heart of the dispute, and it remains unresolved today.
The problem became even more complicated because the law did not clearly define the full size or structure of a dwelling house. As a result, in some cases, part of a private home was classified as an “extra house” and taken by the state. That meant some owners were left living in their own houses together with government tenants or lessors, often for decades and against their will. In practical terms, the state did not only take buildings. It also disrupted households, split property use, and reduced the land available to original owners for their own dwelling purposes.
This is not a small administrative mistake. It is a long-term violation of property rights and personal dignity.
The impact goes beyond ownership papers. Housing is where families live, grow, and pass on wealth. If part of a private home is taken and turned into government property without compensation, the owner loses more than a room. They lose control, privacy, income, and often the ability to use the remaining land properly. That is why many owners have continued to seek justice for decades. Their claim has never been just about money. It has been about restoring what was taken unfairly.
There have been some attempts to correct the problem. Under the EPRDF, extra houses were returned to true owners in Tigray, showing that the injustice could be addressed when political will existed. That was an important step and should have been a model for wider reform. But outside that example, the problem was never fully solved. In many cities, including Addis Ababa, the old ownership dispute was left hanging.
The current Prosperity Party-led government has also not resolved the matter. In some cases, it has made it worse by demolishing older government houses in the name of corridor development without first settling the compensation issue. That approach is deeply troubling. Development is necessary, but development cannot be used to erase legal obligations. A city can be modernized without violating the rights of the people who built its neighborhoods in the first place.
The government’s position appears to rest on the idea that these houses became state property long ago and therefore belong permanently to the state. But that argument ignores the central promise of Proclamation No. 47 of 1975 Article 18(1): compensation. If the state took ownership on the condition that it would pay fair value, and that payment was never made, then the moral and legal debt has not disappeared. Time does not erase an unpaid obligation. It only makes the failure more serious.
This is why the issue must be treated as more than a historical dispute. It is a live question of justice. The government cannot continue collecting rent for decades, demolishing houses in the name of development, and still claim that the original owners have no standing. If compensation was promised and never paid, then the owners still have a legitimate claim.
The solution should begin with recognition. The government should openly acknowledge that many private owners were never fairly compensated for extra houses taken under the 1975 law. It should also acknowledge that some owners were deprived of rooms inside their own dwellings and of the land they were supposed to use for housing. These are not imaginary grievances. They are concrete losses that have affected real people for generations.
Second, the state should restore property where restoration is still possible. In cases where parts of a dwelling were wrongly classified as extra house space, the original owners should be given back what was taken, if it can be returned without causing new injustice. Where that is no longer possible, fair compensation must be paid. That is the basic balance required by law and ethics.
Third, any urban development program, including corridor projects and demolition plans, must begin with a proper compensation framework. It is not enough to say that a structure is old or outdated. If the government is still benefiting from property that was never fully paid for, then it has no moral authority to demolish it as though the debt never existed.
The principle here is simple but powerful: private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation. That principle should apply whether the property is a house (either Normal rectangular block or Villa House), a room, a building or a parcel of urban land. It should apply whether the taking happened yesterday or 50 years ago. And it should apply whether the government is building roads, corridors, or public facilities.
A government that respects the law must also respect the people whose labor, savings, and sacrifice built the homes it now controls. Urban renewal should not mean historical amnesia. Development should not mean dispossession. Modernization should not be built on unpaid debts.
Ethiopia has an opportunity to correct a long-standing wrong. Doing so would not weaken development. It would strengthen legitimacy. It would show that the state can grow cities without erasing the rights of its citizens. It would show that law means something even when decades have passed.
If Ethiopia wants a truly modern urban future, it must begin by settling the old one fairly. That starts with a simple commitment: private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation.
