Tuesday, October 7, 2025
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A leap into the future: How liberalization will power mobile innovation in Ethiopia

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By Gary Dewing: Country Manager of Ericsson Ethiopia

Ethiopia has taken some very positive steps in its digitization journey by outlining the Digital Strategy for Inclusive Prosperity 2025. With the right execution this can set the country on the path from mobile telephony to broadband connectivity and eventually digitizing entire sectors, creating jobs, improving education & healthcare and help the government in achieving its socio-economic development goals.

As digital infrastructure starts to play this increasingly central role in Ethiopia’s socio-economic development, affordable broadband access will need to be extended to all of the Ethiopian citizens. What is now needed is an execution framework that effectively enables Information and Communications Technology (ICT) access to drive inclusive socioeconomic development in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is opening its telecom market to foreign investment by partly privatizing Ethio telecom as well as introducing two new full-service operator licenses. This will catalyze steady growth in all sectors in the coming years. The liberalization initiative is meant to enable the provision of more, better and innovative communication services across the country as well as offering a host of opportunities including:

  • Attracting new investment
  • Upgrading national infrastructure
  • Delivering macro- economic benefits such as creating jobs
  • Contributing to improving universal access
  • Improving services, pricing and choice for the end-user community
  • Encouraging innovation and differentiation of services

In Sub-Saharan Africa, mobile broadband subscriptions are predicted to increase, reaching 72% of mobile subscriptions by 2025. LTE share will reach around 30% by the end of the forecast period, and LTE subscriptions are set to triple, increasing from 90 million in 2019 to 270 million in 2025, according to the June 2020 edition of the Ericsson Mobility Report.

Empowering a connected Ethiopia

As Ethiopia’s mobile market accelerated, driven by Ethiopian’s high demand on connectivity, Ericsson committed to support the development of Ethiopia’s telecom industry, leveraging our global expertise and technology leadership.

Ericsson has been present in Africa for more than 120 years, with our first entry onto the continent in Ethiopia in 1894. Ericsson started by supplying the first 500-point switching system and then Ethiopia ordered its first crossbar switching exchange in 1961.

In 2014 Ericsson signed a framework agreement with Ethio telecom. The agreement contained 2G/3G mobile communication equipment and related services including design, planning, deployment, tuning, and optimization. The framework agreement allowed Ethio telecom to further improve the capacity and performance of its 2G/3G network. This consequently ensured improved quality of network coverage, richer and more innovative mobile communication services to subscribers in the southern regions of Ethiopia.

The agreement was also used to transform the existing network and added additional capacity to meet the country’s need to bring connectivity to more than 40 million subscribers nationwide.

Achieving universal access should be a vitally important part of any country’s economic development strategy. In Ethiopia, the greatest economic and employment benefits and growth opportunities after this landmark ruling will be achieved when improved communications are extended throughout the entire country. Most importantly, digitalization will create an infrastructure that can boost livelihoods, promote financial inclusion, and improve access to health, education, government services and more.

 

Attorney General indict high profile individuals for money laundering

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The Federal Attorney General (FAG) filed massive criminal charges on ten individuals and companies in relation to involvement with eight criminal acts including money laundering, financing of terrorism, illegally confiscating others property and illegal money transfer.
The charge was filed at the Federal High Court- Lideta Criminal Bench and indicated that seven individuals and three companies, have been sued on allegation of criminal acts that they did from 2016.
The individuals that were sued are Haregewoyne Tedla, Azeb Miretab, 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.
The file indicated that the individuals were involved in an illegal act that entailed forceful confiscation of a seven floor hotel property owned by Cosmo Trading PLC. The property is located at Wolo Sefer, Bole and was confiscated as collateral for the compensation of a loan.
FAG’s charges stated as follows: Efrem (Defendant 3) had swayed Haileyesus Mengistu (plaintiff and owner of Cosmo Trading PLC) to take a loan from Azeb (Defendant 2) when he was faced with a liquidity crunch. The charge adds that Azeb (Defendant 2) stated the money needed would be availed to Cosmo Trading PLC by Haregewoyne (Defendant 1), who lives in the US. In June of 2016 a non-formal or traditional agreement between Haregewoyne and Haileyesus (plaintiff- ‘accuser’) was signed for the provision of 50 million birr with a nine percent interest. Azeb and Efrem (Defendant 2 and 3) were witness signatories to the traditional agreement. In addition, the collateral for the loan was the seven-storey building which has an estimated worth of 250 million birr, the charge stated.
According to the charge, whilst the two parties had agreed on a 50 million birr loan, only 3.2 million birr was transferred from Azeb’s United Bank account to Cosmo Trading PLC of the same bank.
The charge further states, that the defendants accused Cosmo Trading PLC for not paying the 50 million birr (of which they only gave 3.2 million) and as a result forcefully secured the property that the company placed as collateral. JJ Property Management PLC bought the company for 60 million birr, despite the company not having any legal registration.
Following this acquisition, Azeb and Temesgen (Defendant 2 and 4) got the right to administer Cosmo Trading PLC. Using this privilege, they received a 61 million birr long time loan from Awash Bank using Cosmo’s 7 storey building as collateral.
From the 61 million birr approved by Awash bank, 21 million birr went into paying the loan that the company had at United Bank (Friday, the 22nd of March, 2019). The remainder, 40 million birr, was wired to Cosmo’s account the following Monday. (25th March, 2019).
The charge indicated that on the same day Cosmo received the 40 million, from the amount 32.5 million was wired to JJ Property Management’s account. Azeb is a major shareholder and general manager of JJ property whilst Temesgen has the power of attorney.
According to the charge from the stated date of the first money transfer, several similar money transfers had been done to different accounts of individuals and companies from the remainder of the 40 million birr.
Some of the transfers on individual accounts are stated as money sent from abroad for different residents, which the Attorney General called as witnesses on the charge.
The FAG charge file claimed that the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 9th defendant conducted illegal banking businesses as well as involvement in money transfer that affected the foreign currency revenue that the government shall obtain.
Apart from the stated amount, an additional ten million birr over a draft short term loan was released by Awash Bank to the company in August 2019.
The charge claimed that in exclusion of the 21 million birr paid to the United Bank for the loan settlement by Awash Bank, the rest of the money was spent on unrelated businesses that were not in direct benefit to Cosmo.
The Attorney General’s charge has also claimed that the 2nd defendant gave a misleading testimony to the Federal Police in March 2017 on Police investigations in relation to the USD 1.8 million transfer.
FAG has called 35 individuals as witnesses who include well known individuals in the business community to testify the case besides 62 testimonial documents with 822 pages.
The case was filed at Lideta on September 25.

ZamZam Bank receives license as Ethiopia’s first IFB

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The first Interest-Free Bank (IFB), ZamZam Bank (ZZB), has received a green light from the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) after 13 years in restless efforts.
The bank was a pioneer when it started its activity in 2007 after the government had shown interest in allowing the bank to operate under the Islamic Banking principle. However, this was short-lived when the government enforced that interest-free banking will operate alongside conventional banking. This decision was not conducive for the founders of the bank who wanted to only run an interest-free bank. This led the bank to refund the collected sum to its share buyers.
On the upside for the bank, the government for the past two and a half years had been undergoing political reform. The government has now allowed its citizens to invest in fully-fledged IFBs. This had re-sparked the interest of ZamZam Bank which recently commenced its activities under formation by collecting huge amounts of funds in a short time.
ZamZam has now received its license from the regulatory body, NBE. This will make ZZB the first Interest Free Bank in the country. According to the information that Capital obtained from NBE, the regulatory body will officially award the license to ZZB on Monday 12, October 2020.
While the bank declined to comment on the issue, it is crystal clear that it will commence operation in the near future. The bank boasts a shareholder’s base of 11,200 and a subscribed capital of over 1.7 billion birr.

INCREASED INCOHERENCE

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States and their innate manipulative behaviors, almost always at the service of capital, are at the core of the current overwhelming incoherence that obtains in the nation-states of the modern world system. To systemic analysts/operators economic, social, and political incoherence has become dastardly unmanageable on the world scale. Of course, this phenomenon might not be visible to the gullible sheeple (human mass), but that doesn’t make it any less tolerable, particularly to those sensitive/concerned citizenry of the world. Luckily, there are indications to suggest the bosses of the global order might have finally recognized the comprehensive danger that is threatening the world order, which of course is the existing lopsided globalization!
To this end, the DS (deep state) has been working overtime to come up with proposals and actions that might be convincing, both to the privileged insiders as well as to the marginalized outsiders. As this project is still inchoate, one cannot pass considered judgment as to its potential veracity or sustainability. To recall; our definition of the DS (Deep State) is the amalgam of the military-intelligence-industrial-banking-media-complex. The world economy has been in intensive care since at least the last ‘mini’ credit crisis. We say ‘mini’ because no global economic regime of fiat currency has ever managed to go through a complete credit cycle in the history of organized humanity/civilization, without economic social collapse. This is obvious because; within the prerogative of the phony money system (fiat monetary regime), value will ultimately be delivered in currencies that sport plenty of zeroes with no purchasing power! Think German’s Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe, Argentina, etc. or in the words of one of the founders of the ‘Austrian School of Economics’: “There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.” Ludwig von Mises.
Are the bosses of the system leaning towards the ‘abandonment of further credit expansion’ project, a la Mises, to stave off sudden global economic demise? Is the current project of shrinking the existing world economy, under various guises, part of this ‘abandonment’ project? Can the ‘Reset’ project stop the accelerating global collapse? Only time will tell. In the mean time, printing trillions in a global economy that is physically locked up might not be all that inflationary, as the velocity of money (in this case) is effectively zero! In this regard, the current behavior of the five eyes is somewhat telling, save the hegemon. The 5Is are USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It seems the 4Is are at it again, reinforcing draconian measures on the account of the declared pandemic. They are resorting to the good old irrational fear as an effective tool to freeze economies. Unlike the other 4Is, however, the hegemon is not homogeneous, in more ways than one. Other countries that are highly dependent on the DS have followed suits. For example, the wretched countries of Africa are sheepishly implementing directives from the DS, without hardly any debate whatsoever. Don’t forget; the banking component of the DS includes the major banking organizations of the world system; BIS, IMF, WB, ECB, etc. By the same token, the media component of the DS includes Google, Twitter/Facebook, Netflix/Hollywood, etc.
Elsewhere on the planet, where the DS is not deeply entrenched, like Scandinavia, the handling of Covid-19 was mostly based on solid science, rational management and prudent politics. Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands are examples where responsible pro-people approach to problem solving was visibly displayed. Tanzania in Africa has also become an exception by pursuing policies that are more or less similar to the Scandinavians! Belarus was also in this camp until color revolution hit it smack on its face, so to speak. Concerned citizens in Germany have also started a movement trying to force the government to set up an independent commission of enquiry about the whole lockdown/pandemic episode. The incoherence about the pandemic even within the OECD (rich countries) is so astounding it is defying the very logic and modus operandi of the prevailing empire. When genuine science is visibly undermined by the politicized cadres of the ‘paid science’ community (a good portion of academia) including the once prestigious institutions of enlightenment, one must suspect that something is really out of sync within the inner workings of the global order!
The political incoherence, particularly within the hegemon is probably unprecedented. The White house is openly confronting the most secretive element of the DS, namely the intelligence community, with abandon. See the article next column. The major countries of the EU are also having second thoughts about the whole union (EU) project (Brexit might only be the harbinger). European political parties, with aspirations that are in direct conflict with the European project, are coming to the fore, despite protestations by the old guards comfortably sitting in Brussels. Cultural and social incoherence are now a dime a dozen, not only in the USA and UK, but also elsewhere in Europe! All these incoherence need resolutions, acceptable resolutions, otherwise chaotic collapse will only accelerate! Granted, the operating word is now ‘Reset’, but the question still remains; will the ‘Reset’ project deliver what the global sheeple is craving for (health, peace/no wars, ecosystem sustainability, etc.) or will it stick to the old model of serving only the interests of the parasitic elites? The future of current civilization is hanging in the balance. Following is an epitome of the ongoing political incoherence. Here is the most powerful man on the planet sparring, or is it more like pleading, with the formidable DS.
“All Russia Hoax Scandal information was Declassified by me long ago. Unfortunately for our country people have acted very slowly, especially since it is perhaps the biggest political crime in the history of our country. Act!!!…….
I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!…….
So I had to constantly fight off all of this Scum, achieve more than any other President in First Term, and then they talk Chaos. They created crimes against me and this administration”! Donald Trump. Good Day!