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.
Strict safety rules come to construction sites
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.
CBE profits 17.9 billion birr
Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) has reversed course and is back in the black. During the 2018/19 fiscal year, the bank’s gross profits were 17.9 billion birr. This is an increase of almost seven billion birr compared with the 2017/18 performance.
According to the bank’s annual report, they had increases of 102.9 percent and 163.6 percent in gross profit, compared with the year’s target and preceding period respectively.
In 2017/18 CBE’s gross profit stood at 10.4 billion birr. This was a reduction of 4.3 billion birr compared with the 2016/17 performance of 14.7 billion birr.
Before the 2017/18 financial year the bank’s earnings were rising around 10 percent every year but in the 2017/18 financial year they declined. The ended year performance has a growth almost 65 percent compared with the preceding period.
The devaluation and hard currency revenue is what caused the banks’ earnings to decline.
During the year CBE secured close to USD 4 billion in the just ended financial year from money transfers, while the export of hard currency earning was about only quarter billion USD.
In his report the recently assigned president Bacha Gina, said that the remittance earnings in the past financial year was USD 3.9 billion, while export earnings were USD 269 million. The bank has also secured USD 2.1 billion in transfers from the National Bank of Ethiopia, Central Bank.
Early this week Bacha said that his bank provided USD 2 billion to the private sector, while in his report on Friday he stated that CBE provided USD 1.5 billion to private importers.
According to the report of CBE at the end of last financial year the bank added 145 billion birr as incremental assets and its total assets have now climbed to 712 billion birr. The assets increased by 44 billion birr more than the target.
In the 2018/19 year, CBE has amassed an additional 89.4 billion birr as deposits with a 102pct performance compared with the target and similar percentage compared with the preceding year.
The private deposit mobilization has registered a growth of 134 percent compared with the preceding year and stood at 67.9 billion birr, which is also higher than the target.
The total deposit mobilization of the bank has stood at 541 billion birr and the private sector saving has taken the lion’s share by 368 billion birr.
Regarding non performing loan (NPL) the bank registered significant improvement and its NPL has shrunk to 1.8 percent from 3.5 percent a year ago. For the year CBE, which is also major finance provider for government owned projects, has provided 129 billion birr in loans and advances. Of which the private sector secured 22.2 billion birr, which is almost one sixth of the total loan disbursement.
Diaper, sanitary pad company re-starts
Sanitary napkin and baby diaper maker Lilac has restarted operations after years of inactivity.
The company invested 100 million birr in machines.
Lilac, began manufacturing personal care and hygienic products 20 years ago. They make Maclean diapers and Lilac sanitary napkins. They are the first to produce these products locally.
The factory imported its raw materials from four countries: USA, Japan, Hong Kong.
The price of Maclean diapers fails between 450-750 birr depending on the number of pieces, which makes the cost of the product competitive according to the representatives of the company.
Currently, Lilac has the capacity of producing 74 million pieces of Maclean Diapers and 86 million pieces of sanitary napkins per year. If they increased shifts they could produce half of what the country needs. 
“Lack of hard currency comes at the top of our challenge to manufacture in full capacity,” said Mohammed Yusuf manager and owner of the factory.
He says they are saving some foreign currency and substituting imports but it is not enough.
“The incentives given to local and international manufacturers are not the same, local manufacturers also need more support and attention as we create job opportunities,” Mohammed adds.
The factory employs 50 people, 40 of which are women.
As part of discharging corporate social responsibilities, the company has been supporting local non – governmental organizations by providing sanitary napkins and diapers.
Last Tuesday at the factory, the owners delivered products worth over 2 million birr to Abebech Gobena Children’s Care and Development Association, Gergesenon Association for supporting people with mental disorders, Sile Enat, and Abadir Schools.
According to Mohammed, the company has a plan to export its product to the international market if they can get enough foreign currency to work in three shifts.
Studies show a demand for more than one billion pieces of sanitary napkins and diapers in Ethiopia.
