In a surprise move, Takele Uma, Vice Mayor of Addis Ababa suspended the 30th round of the city’s land bid auction five days after it opened and began selling documents on August 1st. No reason was given for the temporary halt or indication of how long it would last.
A total of 117 plots of land were floated in five sub cites for commercial use. It is expected that the bidding will reopen shortly.
Ninety one plots were offered in Bole sub city while Yeka and Kirkos had 17 and 6 plots up for sale respectively. One plot was floated both in Gullele and Arada Sub cities.
Negusu Lema, Public Relations Head of the Addis Ababa Land Management Bureau told Capital that they will resume the sale after approval from the mayor’s office.
He added that the auction will be carried out via computer like the 29th auction.
“The computer system is simple, a bidder comes to the central station and fills in only the CPO amount and the amount of money they are bidding. If they cannot type on the computer, they can come with someone or an employee of the bureau can help them. The system helped us a lot in the 29th round  because it saved us time and money,” he said.
In the last land auction the Bureau received 110,000 birr per square meter in Kolfe Keranyo Sub City for 367  square meters from a woman called, Hamzia Muzae. Sheffa Kider had the second place bid at 24,888 birr per square meter.  In total Hamzia will pay 40.3 million birr in addition to the interest  rate which will be calculated every year. She must make a 20 percent down payment.
The second record bid amount came from Alemayehu Dejen who offered 68,119 birr per square meter to buy 226 square meters of land in Bole.
Nifas Silke Lafto got the third record price from Seid Ommer who offered  58,830 birr for 349 square meters with a down payment of 30 percent.
The 4th highest price was offered in Arada Sub City by Shekur Abubeker  who  tagged 56,767 birr per square meter for 788 square meters.