By Dawit Astatike
The state monopoly, Ethio telecom disclosed its three year strategic plans on Friday at its headquarters to prepare for the upcoming change that enables the company to be a competitive telecom operator following the direction of the Ethiopian government to reform the telecom sector market for international companies.
Frehiwot Tamiru, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ethio-telecom briefed journalists on company’s three year strategy that will be executed from July 2019 to June 2022.
The strategy is unique as it is self-initiated and developed by in-house experts through considering the policies and strategies of the existing realities of country, contrary to previous experience where international consulting firms do it.
“The main objective of the plan is to increase the company’s competitiveness and efficiency by reshaping the company and to lead the business orientation in a competitive mind set,” adds the CEO.
The first year of the strategic plan assumes there will not be other operators in the telecom market and no ownership change is made as the ministry of finance which is responsible for conducting a study on the engagement of foreign companies in the sector has a long way to go.
This creates space to do our assignment better in spite of the fact that the strategy is flexible to accommodate any change that happens in the course of the year.
The strategies that have 20 major objectives address digital inclusion to create a better digital economy application programming interface for mobile money.
Ethio telecom presented a study to the National Bank of Ethiopia to work on mobile money in a bid to create a cashless society and work on financial inclusion.
The company also created a major business plan for this fiscal year to improve the quality of service accessibility, network expansion and alternative power solutions that will be implemented in Addis Ababa and regions. In this regard, more than five million additional mobile network capacity will be installed to improve the network coverage and capacity, which the same time double international gateway capacity.
The company also plans to increase its number of clients to 50.4 million and its revenue to 45.4 billion birr this Ethiopian fiscal year. The revenue shares will be 53 percent from mobile voice, 33 percent from data and Internet and the remaining from international business and value added tax.
In order to realize service accessibility, the company will add more than 70 shops that will bring a total of 438 shops in addition to 75,000 partner distributors and retailers to get all the service of the company.
Ethio-telecom announced 36.3 billion birr revenue in the concluded Ethiopian fiscal year, attaining 85 percent of the target.
The 125 year state monopoly, ethio-telecom has more than 15,000 permanent and 18, 000 temporary employees.
Ethio-telcom reveals three- year strategic plan
Cultural village ready for business at Bishoftu
Kuriftu Ethiopian Cultural Village featuring Ethiopia’s first water park was inaugurated yesterday, August 31. The Cultural Village is a new tourism destination at Bishoftu in a bid to promote Ethiopian culture, art and cuisine. The project was completed in two and half years in spite of the hard currency shortage.
Built on over 70,000sqm of land, Kuriftu Cultural Village has 120 shops, a water park, wine and beer hall, cultural restaurant and spa.
“As part of encouraging local business, Ethiopian products are showcased and made available for visitors in all shops,” said Tadios Getachew, owner of Kuriftu Resorts and Spas.
There is something for everyone at the water park; a wave pool, two water houses, boomerang slide, spiral slide with famous Fekat circus as a performance center that accommodates 400 participants. The Cultural Village is an expansion made adjacent to the Kuriftu resort that sits on 30,000sqm.
“The Kuriftu water park is really a tourist destination as it suited to hold facilities for all age levels,” Michael Tesfaye, Marketing Director of Boston Partners said.
The village will provide visitors with an experience of custom, practices, rituals, dances, folklore, and arts. The completion of the cultural village will create 1,000 jobs.
Owned by Boston Partners, the company has more than 10 operational businesses in places like Bahir Dar, Semera, Langano, Adama and Djibouti.
“We want to be a chain of resorts, spas and restaurants all over Africa,” Tadios adds.
Regional states unhappy with new education policy
Tigray regional state says it is not happy with the new educational road map that will be rolled out next Ethiopian academic year because they say it threatens the Federal System and the constitution.
The new educational road map will reintroduce a 6-2-4 system next year replacing the 8-2-2 system introduced some 20 years ago.
Based on a report, the Tigray region rejected the recommendation from the Ministry of Education to teach students Amharic which is the Federal government’s working language.
“We will not teach Amharic from grade one on as it creates confusion with the students in differentiating the sounds because both Amharic and Tigrigna language use the same letters,” said Bahita W/Michael, Head of Tigray Education Bureau.
“The issue of teaching languages is subjected to the respective regional states but the road map recommends teaching Amharic which is the federal language from grade one on, adding that the road map is just a recommendation,” the Ministry of Education said.
Currently Amharic learning starts in third grade in Tigray and in fifth grade in Oromia and the education road map allows students to be taught in their mother tongue between grade 1-8.
Last week, Shimeles Abdissa, President of Oromia Regional State also expressed his discontent with the proposed education road map to teach the Amharic language from grade one on.
“No negotiation over the Oromo language, the recommendation for students to take the Federal working language as a subject matter in school is just ridiculous” Shimeles said.
However, the educational road map is under discussion in the Somali regional state in the presence of all stakeholders to have more input.
For Mustafa Mohammed Omar, President of Somalia Regional State, the recommendation to teach Amharic as one subject matter in classes is an added advantage, not a liability and it does not go against one’s own identity rather creates a common understanding.
One of the architects of the new education road map Professor Tirusew Tefera says there are about 30 recommendations studied by the team and it all depends on the interest of the regions.
Africa Union develops common position for climate change summit
The conference on climate change and development in Africa was held for the 8th time at the African Union from August 28 to 30, 2019 in a bid to develop a common African position and concern about the upcoming UN climate action summit during September 23, 2019 in New York.
It will attract policy makers, representatives from civil society organizations academia and development partners from the member states of the African Union (AU) to attend the eighth Conference on Climate Change and Development with the theme: ‘Stepping up climate action for a resilient Africa – a race we can and must win’.
Many African countries have submitted ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions to Climate Action – NDCs – that shows their strong commitments to tackle climate change, said Frehiwot Woldehanna, State Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy.
He also underscored Ethiopia’s effort for clean energy and a pioneer country to submit its NDC and sign the Paris Agreement in addition to co chairing one of the nine action areas, which is the energy transition with Denmark.
Africa contributes the least to global emissions but is already suffering the most adverse impacts from climate change. The Continent contributes under 6 percent of carbon emissions, which is only 0.8 tons per year, which is below the global mean of 5 tons. However the continent suffers more.
To slow down the impact of climate change, identifying the need for an estimated USD 3.5 – 4 trillion of investment by 2030 To support African countries adapt to climate change, AfDB has committed to ensuring that at least 40 percent of its project approvals are tagged as climate finance by 2020, with equal proportions for adaptation and mitigation. The bank also seeks to mainstream climate change and green growth initiatives into all investments by next year.
