Youth organized to demolish houses around the La Gare area told the Woreda administration that they were unhappy about being sidelined from demolishing the Shipping Lines and Varnero Buildings.
The Woreda 7 administration of Kirkos sub-city organized close to 500 unemployed youth from La Gare, Filwuha and Commerce areas in 18 teams to demolish houses to make way for the Eagle Hill project.
According to the agreement with the Wereda administration, the youth will demolish and sell properties to earn money and already participated in the demolition of most parts of the area.
One of the team members told Capital that they were expected to earn more from the two-building, but the Woreda administration took over the task without informing them and auctioned by themselves in the absence of the representative of them.
For the demolition of Ethiopian Shipping Lines and Logistics Service Enterprise building, seven individuals won the auction at a value of over a million birr.
Capital asked the Woreda administration head Haftu Gebreegziabher but he refused to comment.
The Eagle Hills project is being built by the Dubai based real estate developer at the cost of 50 billion birr. It should be finished in seven years. The project includes hotels, malls and apartments.
Shipping Lines building demolition raises eyebrows
Nine thousand condos to be transferred shortly
Around 9,000 40/60 condo houses between one and three bedrooms will be transferred in the next three months according to close sources in the Addis Ababa Housing Project Office (AAHPO).
The houses are located at 12 different sites where condos are being constructed. They are in the finishing stages. Those who save at least 40 percent of the total cost will qualify for the lottery draw.
Currently the office is making a contractual agreement with the second-round condo winners and from the 17,000 of these people, 40 have honored the agreement so far at the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia.
“The office is waiting for the progress of the contractual agreement on the houses that were drawn last fiscal year. When the agreement is completed, the third round 40/60 condo draw will be carried out on the 9,000 houses based on the current rules and regulations.”
The sources added that the office is in the planning stage to start the constriction of 300,000 houses in the center and on the outskirts of Addis Ababa in a bid to address the housing deficit in the city.
Among the 300,000 new houses planed, 200,000 of the houses are in the 20 /80 schemes while the rest are in the 40/60 schemes.
“This housing is a big plan for the city who suffered a lot from housing shortages and high rental costs, the budget of the house, the year of completion and the exact place of the construction will be studied and the administration will reveal this plan to the public in the near future,’’ a source at the housing office told Capital.
The administration retook over 200 hectares of land in various parts of the city form investors including 54 hectares of the MIDROC fenced land but no plan has been made so far as to which places will serve for the construction of the condos.
So far, the government has constructed less than170,000 houses but one million people need homes. Takele Uma, the vice mayor of the city previously announced his administration prepared 1,500 hectares to build homes.
The 11th EPRDF congresses which was conducted a year ago raised a new strategy which will facilitate a plot of land and a loan program for private home developers. The document stated that unlike the previous policy land and finance will be facilitated for house developers. In addition, foreign real estate developers will be able to engage in the housing scheme in addition to local investors.
Strict safety rules come to construction sites
The Addis Ababa City Construction Bureau has drafted a new health safety construction regulation requiring contractors to fulfill mandatory safety materials and procedures before they start work.
The proclamation forces the contactors to provide the necessary safety dress and shoes, have separate toilets and dressing rooms for both genders, showers, dining rooms, a clinic with a nurse and doctor.
Using wooden scaffolding for more than one project is also forbidden in the draft regulation and the contactors should have health insurance coverage for workers.
A system will be put in place so that site management can quickly obtain information about unsafe practices and defective equipment. Safety and health duties should be specifically assigned to certain persons, the draft regulation reads.
All contractors (including utilities, specialist contractors, contractors nominated by the client and the self-employed) have a part to play in ensuring that the site is a safe and healthy place to work.
Contractors are in danger of having their licenses permanently revoked if they violate safety rules multiple times.
Demelash Gebremariam head of the bureau said that the goal of the regulation is to decrease death and injury and project delays due to poor occupational health environments at the construction sites.
“Numerous work-related injuries, illnesses, property damages, and process losses occur at different workplaces but due to underreporting or misclassification as a result of lack of thorough standards, or unfamiliarity with the existing guidelines, people are not normally aware of such events and their actual or potential consequences. Thus, effective corrective actions are required.”
Recent research indicated that although there are appropriate health and safety rules for governing construction work, there is lack of enforcement of regulations from government & regulatory bodies responsible for ensuring compliance and they are not properly resourced to carry out their legal responsibilities. Clients and consultants do not consider safety issues as perquisites for awarding projects and they do not even include this as criteria in the contract. Many projects don’t include regular training, and supervising by trained staff.
Applied universities to start next year
The government has finished preparing for seven applied universities to commence education next year, PM Abiy Ahmed says.
The newly developed Education Roadmap for 2018-2030 showed a need to open applied universities to link theories with practice and engage more in scientific research.
Applied universities go by many names – polytechnic university, university of applied sciences, vocational university, applied for technological university – according to what countries think best describes their context, according to Wendwossen Tamrat.
According to the draft educational road map documents, the majority of universities in Ethiopia have concentrated on teaching, and are not participating actively in research, community services, and development endeavors of the country as expected. Universities have side-lined research and more importantly, community services as secondary tasks, focusing on teaching, and neglecting the realm of research and scholarly interactions among scientists, technology/knowledge generation and transfer, university-industry linkages and community service.
“The road map differentiates universities to engage in focus areas to solve their communities’ problems and help to organize resources, both in human resources and inputs used for laboratories and machines,” said Tirusew Tefera, one of the architects of the new road map.
Currently, there are 44 government higher institutions all teaching the same disciplines except the Adama Science and Technology and the Addis Ababa Science and Technology Universities.
“Applied universities can offer high-level professional and practical degrees different from what has so far been provided by comprehensive universities,” Wendwossen adds.
“As the road map begins to be implemented next year, the curriculum for the first phase is already completed in which the new entries will stay for four years and will select their respective department after the completion of freshman courses which are focused on history, psychology, and entrepreneurship,” Tirusew adds.
The ministry is categorizing public universities based on their potential, resources to specialize in certain areas and provide quality of education up to post graduate levels.
