The infrastructure sharing agreement between Ethio telecom and Safaricom Ethiopia lags behind with the latter delaying to pay the agreed down payment.
After a period of negotiations on 13 April 2022, at a meeting convened by the Ethiopian Communication Authority (ECA), the two telecom operators reached agreements in principle on the key terms. As sources told Capital, Safaricom had selected 1000 towers from the total of 7100 towers Ethio telecom has, which is around 14 percent at a price point of 90 million dollars.
Even though there were concerns on the site selection, Safaricom hasn’t been able to pay the down payment of USD 3 million to start the sharing process with Ethio telcom.
According to source, it will take up to 4 to 5 months to kick start the sharing process after the down payment has been made.
Safaricom Ethiopia’s phased launch is expected to commence this August in the city of Dire Dawa and then accelerate to 24 other cities, including Addis Ababa in the months that follow. Of course the initial launch was slated for April but faced setbacks to which issues on infrastructure were set as one of the result to the delay.
To start its operation in Dire Dawa, Safaricom has rented a data center from Ethio telecom, however regarding tower sharing as the source indicated Safaricom is focusing on building its own infrastructure leaving the agreement behind.
The new operation of the telecom entrant has ambitions of achieving gross margins of 40 per cent in 10 years. The target is backed by heavy investments that the subsidiary will make in hiring staff and building infrastructure to acquire customers in the country with a population of more than 100 million.
On its latest report Safaricom PLC which has 55.71 percent share from the consortium has set Infrastructure as one of its investment risk in Ethiopia including political and regulatory and also currency required for identification and mitigation. “We are now working together with Ethio Telecom on the finalization of these important agreements and the implementation required for our commercial launch,” said Safaricom in its reports.
The agreement is said to last for 10 years on infrastructure sharing and interconnection. Severe disagreements had earlier arisen between the two companies regarding the price and currency of payment and under this agreement, the payment will be in both currencies, with varying ratios across the infrastructure type.
Ethio telecom has 7,100 towers and over 22,000Km of fiber optics all over the country. The agreement in principle with Ethio telecom was announced in April barely a month after the telecom operator signed an infrastructure-sharing agreement with the state-owned Ethiopian Electric Utility (EEU) to deploy its aerial fibers.
“Both agreements are really important because even though we are building our own network towers and transmissions at the same time in line with that it make sense to share infrastructure rather than to build two in the same area,” said Matthew Harrison Harvey, Safaricom Ethiopia’s Chief Regulatory and External Affairs Officer, on the company’s press release adding, “This will enable the company to have options and redundancy indicating that the agreement is now under implementation.”
In 2021, the Global Partnership consortium for Ethiopia, led by Safaricom, was awarded a license by the Ethiopia’s Ministry of Finance and the ECA to establish a new telecoms network and to operate in the country.
Safaricom, which paid 850 million dollars for a 15-year license, is building its infrastructure development project, having contracted Huawei and Nokia for its network development and also uses building-tops to its networking.
The company has so far invested 1 billion dollars including the license fee to the government of Ethiopia in addition to signing an infrastructure and interconnectivity agreement with Ethio telecom.
“Our expectation, based on feedback from the Government of Ethiopia, and with our break-even target set at year 4, is that forex availability will have been resolved by then, long before we will need to repatriate any dividends from the business,” read Safaricom’s report.
With regards to the recent delay in down payments, officials from Safaricom have refused to comment on the issue.
Tele-Safaricom deal up in the air
Agricultural export performance ‘not as rosy’, opine sector experts
Despite the coffee sector attaining an extraordinary performance in the ended budget year, sector actors argue that the performance of other agricultural exports is at an alarming condition to which government ought to emplace corrective measures swiftly. However, the Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration (MoTRI) ridicules the argument.
In the ended 2021/22 budget year, the country achieved USD 4.12 billion which is an increment of half a billion dollars. In the year, the export performance of the industry sector and horticulture was promising and over the target respectively. Both sectors attained an additional USD 100 million each compared with the same period of last budget year.
Similarly, coffee earnings rose by half a billion dollars compared to the budget year that ended July 7, 2021.
In the past years, the country had introduced different reforms to boost the export sector. Measures had been undertaken on policies, strategies and structural adjustment to improve the home grown economy to uplift the export volume and value, diversity and quality.
The ministry stated that these measures have shown success in the past and the just ended budget year.
However, exporters and sector actors argued that the year’s success was shaded by the shinning of few export products. They said that the year concluded with weak performances mainly on oilseeds and pluses export, which are some of the top hard currency sources for the country.
An exporter that Capital spoke to regarding the issue said that his performance for the year was not good on his business. He said that it was difficult to access oilseeds and pulses as the past.
“In my view, in the year the product was limited besides some other challenges like transporting commodities from production areas,” he said regarding the commodity he exports.
One of the biggest exporters told Capital that in the ended budget year the country was supposed to generate huge sums from oilseeds and pulses export, since the global demand was very huge.
“The trading of pluses in the global market is up to 2.6 million metric tons, worth billions of dollars, to which we have better chances in the market,” he said.
“But in my view, the country is not working on productivity to scale up its benefit, and secondly the market system has become distorted from time to time,” he argued.
Previously, there was a contract administration that was bandaged with regulation, weekly reference prices have also been emplaced to keep the market aligned with the global rate. Now there are distortion behaviors in the market.
Experts said that besides that contract farming, which is a very important concept, has become very dangerous and abused by traders who buy commodities against the trading system.
Experts claimed that some traders produce falsified documents as if they secured commodities through contract farming schemes, but in actual sense they bought it from primary markets at even higher rates from international market.
“The regularity body, MoTRI, should strengthen its controlling mechanism to tackle such illegal acts and keep the sector contribution for export earnings,” they said.
They recalled that the price reference that is uses as a reference for the global market in the trading at Ethiopian Commodity Exchange has become implemented as of a week ago, which they appreciated.
But they said it has affected the export earnings in the past season since the controlling was at a loss that allowed illegal actors to abuse the commodity market.
“Those who bought commodities from informal market mostly bought the commodity higher than the global market, which makes them and the country losers,” one of the exporters said, adding, “that is why they hoard commodities on the hope that the international market shall increase, but the country is not getting the foreign currency that it was suppose to get on time. I think the government is already informed that is why it is forcing exporters to export their commodity as soon as possible.”
Security issues have also been stated as one of the challenges by exporters and experts for lower performance for oilseeds and pulses.
“For example sesame that comes from Welega is not available unlike the past. It is similar for some other commodities as well,” an exporter said.
One of the spice exporters agreed that the security issue affects the sector in terms of production and productivity. He said that some spice commodities that are produced on the southwestern part of the country did not get harvested properly, “mostly daily labourers who collect the product were coming from other part of the country but the instability has affected their movement.”
He said that some of the long established and experienced suppliers, who provided products for exporters, in different corners of the country left their places due to security issues.
The other issue raised as a challenge for the weak export performance for agriculture sector is the access to finance.
They said that the government should enforce financial institutions to provide export finance like pre shipment export credit facility. “Banks’ appetite has eroded provision of such kinds of finance, rather collateral based approach is leading the access to finance, which is a major challenge for the export business.”
They added that the foreign currency retention directive is also the other challenge that affects the export. The National Bank of Ethiopia retention directive that was revised in January gives the government access to 70 percent of the hard currency earnings and 20 percent for exporters and 10 percent for banks.
“Some exporters prefer putting a hold on their shipment on the hopes that the government may revise and ease the directive,” experts said.
On the other hand, one of the major exporters on the pulses industry said that the country must focus on productivity to attain success which is being observed on the coffee sector.
“Agriculture is a simple resource in which any country can utilize the same to tap in to its full potential and as a result expand its export,” he said.
Most of the exporters insisted government to strengthen its controlling mechanism on the trading system.
Kassahun Gofe, State Minister of MoTRI, said that the government target was ambitious but regarding the performance of volume and value, the year was very good for the oilseeds and pulses, “unless otherwise why did they attain results beyond their target like coffee, horticulture and some other sector export items.”
He argued that ample production was performed in the past budget year and even transported properly, but he added that there were some sort of hoarding on some oilseeds and pluses commodities.
“For instance today 166,000 metric tons of oilseeds and pluses, which are a product of the past harvest season, have been stored in four towns; Adama, Gelan, Burayu and Aqaqi. So the issue is not production shortage or availability,” he explained, adding, “the main problem is that traders buy products without the consideration of global rates and exporters’ are similarly reluctant to ship commodities on time.”
Kassahun strongly said that the government is taking measures on those who are involved on such commodities hoarding.
Court amends charges on well-known businessmen
As per the rules of the Federal High Court, the Prosecution General Division of Ministry of Justice has filed its amended charges on individuals and companies in connection with criminal acts including; money laundering, financing of terrorism, illegally property confiscation and illegal money transfer.
It can be recalled that the then Federal Attorney General filed criminal charges on ten individuals and companies in relation to involvement with eight criminal acts in 2020.
The charge was filed at the Federal High Court- Lideta Criminal Bench and indicated that seven individuals and three companies had been sued on allegation of criminal acts that they did from 2016.
The individuals that were sued are Haregewoyne Tedla, Azeb Mihretab, Efrem Mulatu, Temesgen Yilma, Adefres Habte, Daniel Tibebu and Mesfin Asmamaw. The companies included on the charge file are: JJ Properties Management PLC, TTH Trading PLC, and Boston Real-estate.
However, as per the 3rd Customs Crime Bench of Lideta Division at Federal High Court ruling given on August 4, 2022, the Prosecution General of the Ministry of Justice has amended its charge and filed to the court last Friday.
As per the new charge, the Persecutor General has made Azeb Mihretab primary defendant and Temesgen Yilma, Adefris Habte, JJ Properties Management PLC, TTH Trading PLC and Boston Real-estate, and Mesfin Asmamaw as defendants from second to seventh respectively, while the rest who were mentioned in the previous charge have been excluded.
On its latest file the persecutor accused individuals and companies on the involvement of five criminal acts, of that, it claimed that the first two defendants have been involved on four criminal acts individually. The companies that are affiliated with them have also been included on some of the illegal participation.
The file argued that the individuals and companies had a role on abusing their power of attorney which they secured to administer Cosmo Trading PLC.
It said that the first and second defendants that have the right to administer the property of Cosmo Trading used the privilege and received a 61 million birr long term loan from Awash Bank,
“From the stated amount, the lender settled the 21 million birr for debt Cosmo owed Hibret Bank while the remaining 40 million birr was transferred to the company’s account at Awash,” it explained.
Besides the 61 million birr, Awash Bank has also approved and transferred additional 10 million birr for Cosmo Trade as over draft as a working capital.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor claimed that the defendants have used the money to benefit themselves or others rather than the benefit of the company.
Besides that the prosecutor claimed that the charged individuals and companies have a role for illegal banking activity, and money laundry besides breaching of trust.
The prosecutor has called 35 individuals as witnesses to testify the case besides 59 testimonial documents.
The court hearing is expected in October.
In another case, Haileyesus Mengistu, major shareholders of Cosmo Trading plc, has appealed to the Federal Higher Court Lideta Division 5th Civil Bench to lift suspended minutes regarding administrating the company on the aim to be able to operate the company’s day to day activity.
‘Mezgebe Aemero’ 180 media personalities
A book titled ‘Mezgebe Aemero’ that literally means Record of Mind, which compiled the stories of one hundred and eighty media persons was inaugurated in the presence of invited guests at the national theater on Saturday August 6, 2022.
The book, which is unique in its kind and contains the life journey of many veteran and famous journalists, is a popular media that took its part in generating ideas for publication and organizing the entire event. Ezra Ejigu is the editor and publisher of the hard cover book in partnership with Tewedaj Media and Communication PLC.
During the launching event representative of Government Communication Affairs Office Zinabu Tulu said that his office will try its best to work with these kinds of projects in the future and offers his office’s full support in the future.
The book features different media personalities and their work that enlighten the public through their respective media.
During the ceremony Ezra said that it took him over a year to prepare the book and added that the most difficult part of preparing the book is to get hold of those that are featured in the book. “Most women rejected the idea only 35 women are featured in the book,” he said. “It was difficult to get hold of the men also, but hard work will finally pay.”
Participants of the ceremony also admired Ezra for his persistence in getting what he wants and applaud him.
Ezra is known for presenting the works of various historical and nationally famous individuals in print and audio.
The book includes the history of media people from 1950 to 2014.
The hardcover book has two meanings. First, because the book is bound by the system, it is more likely to last for many years. In addition, it is a book full of information for students and researchers in journalism schools, so it has many benefits. Because this book is prepared in this way, it makes it unique, including the fact that it contains the stories of many people that have been published to date.
Although the name is known as “Encyclopedia” at the international level, it was prepared with local content, so it needed a name that explained it well. On this, the linguist Takele Thadel and the culture and heritage expert Menker were consulted and believed that the name should be explained in the native language.
This book covers 54 years of work from the 1950s to the 2000s, including 180 of the past and still working journalists. The book, which includes the year in which the experts came to the media, divides the storytellers by era and places them as “1950s”, “1960s”, “1970s”, “1980s”, “1990s” and “2000s”.
Most of the people featured in this book have served their country as journalists and some of them have contributed to the media. Some of them have worked or are currently working as communication professionals.
