Eleven people, including Ermiyas T. Amelga, have been charged with corruption at the Federal High Court’s Lideta Division Bench under the file of M.G. Kinfe Dagnew. They are being accused of illegally procuring items. Ermiyas is being accused of selling the Imperial Hotel to MetEC at an overvalued price.
As he appeared before the court Ermiyas argued that it was unnecessary for the police to have more time to investigate the case. In fact, he argued, he did not need to be in custody because he voluntarily brought all the documents in question to the police, had been cooperating with investigators for a long time and was banned from leaving the country.
MeTEC paid 75 million birr to Ermiyas for the hotel in two instalments. MeTEC bought the hotel from Access Real Estate two years prior at a cost of 47 million birr from the family of Afaw Tefera.
Prosecutors also charged Ermiyas in another court case. At the 15th criminal bench he was charged along with 10 defendants including Alem Fitsum, owner of Alem Genet Factory for allegedly causing 415.2 million birr in damages to the Public Interest through an irregular contract containing deceitful facts. He is being charged along with six alleged co-conspirators in this count.
On January 14, M.G. Knife and 12 other individuals were charged for corruption in the purchase of two ships that prosecutors think cost the country 548 million birr. In addition B/G Tena Kurendi was charged with allegedly violating human rights.
Imperial Hotel owner argues for release
South Gonder’s rising rice production
The average rice yield in South Gonder which produces 80 percent of the nation’s rice has skyrocketed from 20 to 30 quintals in just a decade, which is a testament of continuous efforts to promote the grain in Ethiopia.
The land in places like Fogera, Dembeia and Lebo was at one time considered too poor in quality for agriculture. Now, however, farmers are producing 900,000 quintals of rice per year.
According to Fogrea National Research and Training Center, rice is now is being mixed with teff batter to bake ‘Enjera’ which has greatly increased the demand for rice.
Sheway Abera, the director of Fogera Center told Capital that more rice could be produced if more attention was given to the grain.
“Years ago when rain came farmers went into the mountain until the rain tapered off. Now rain is a blessing because they use it to grow rice and they are earning money. The swampy areas in Gonder are becoming the farming plots for rice and if we use modern farming methods we can grow even more rice .’’
“Our rice production has two targets one is to make it more popular among Ethiopian households and the other is to meet export standards.’’
Ethiopian rice still faces challenges such as high competition with imported rice, poor infrastructure, insufficient mechanization and post harvest processing technologies, lack of skilled manpower and research facilities, poor marketing infrastructure and channels, she said. Building the capacity of the research community, experts, small holder farmers and the private sector is necessary not only to further increase production, but also to improve the quality of rice products through better postharvest handling and processing, she added.
According to the Ethiopian National Rice Development Strategy approved in Kampala in April 2009, Ethiopia has a huge potential to produce rice on an estimated 20 million hectares.
The strategy also indicates a continual increase in land under rice cultivation that grew from 24,434 to 32,685 hectares between the seasons of 2007/08 and 2008/09.
The annual rice production in Ethiopia is now 1.2 million quintals.
Rice was introduced to Ethiopia in the 1970s when wild rice was observed in swampy areas of Gambela and the Fogera plains
The government works alongside rice research partners and donors including: Africa Rice, IRRI, JICA, AGRA, SG2000, and MEDA.
Housing Corp. asks city for more land faster
The Federal Housing Corporation (FHC) is claiming that they need the Addis Ababa City Administration to speed up the process of accessing land so that they can build more housing projects. FHC is arguing that it appears they own more land than they actually do.
FCH appeared at the Parliament to report on is half year performance to the Urban Development, Construction and Transport Affairs standing committee. They said delays in housing construction are being caused because the city administration is taking too much time to obtain land for housing development.
FCH went on to report that securing title deeds to begin new projects is also taking more time than expected.
FHC, which was restructured two years ago, was expected to begin building new houses and expand its business. They recently announced new housing projects in the pipeline to be located in Addis Ababa.
FHC plans to build apartments along with 1,968 houses and other villas. In its half year report it did not mention anything about these projects.
FHC reportedly has identified several plots from places its already owns, but it has not yet settled the title deed issue with the city administration.
The corporation stated that it has classified 8 hectares of land from its own land deed in addition to four other hectares in the stated period
“In the budget year the corporation has targeted to make available 17 hectares of land from its own land deeds and nine hectares from the Addis Ababa City Administration for housing development,” the power point report presented to the standing committee explained.
The five hectares of land from the former Building Equipment Supply Enterprise, which merged with the housing corporation during the recent reestablishment of FHC has already been made available for a new housing project.
The report indicated that they have already obtained 17 hectares of land planned to be facilitated during the budget year for construction from their own plots. The report indicated that FHC had a large amount of land under its jurisdiction however in reality there was less than expected.
For housing development in Dire Dawa, which is also a federal city administration like Addis Ababa, the corporation has secured 4.1 hectares of land.
The six-month report indicated that the design work started last budget year is expected to be fully accomplished, while the actual performance is only 80 percent because some of the sites are not available.
This year, FHC revised the housing lease rate for business houses, undertook property re-valuation and furnishing.
The corporation has re-valued 92.7 percent of its houses located in Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa. In total, 18,457 properties and 17,117 houses have been re-valued.
FHC planned to collect 178.6 million birr from rental fees, accrued rent fees, contract renewals and other revenue sources. The report indicated that it has achieved 91 percent or 162.2 million birr from these sources. Besides rent and related revenues FHC has also earned 6.7 million birr or 42 percent of the target from compensation of bulldozed houses by the city administration.
The report has also added that in the stated period the corporation has earned 107 million birr or 80 percent of the target from warehouse leasing, sales of building materials like bricks and other related activities.
“In six months the corporation has earned a total of 297 million birr, while the target was 360 million birr,” the report added. This is partially because compensation secured from the Addis Ababa City Administration is below the target.
Plastic shops for street vendors worsening congestion
In an attempt to reduce crowding, special shops have been built for street vendors in Addis Ababa. However, now pedestrians are complaining that they are blocking the sidewalks and casing people to walk in the street.
During a recent tour of the city, Capital observed new shops up and running in places like Cherkos, Kassanches, Autobus Terra, and Sidist Kilo and these shops were disrupting the pedestrian traffic flow. The shops are made out of plastic. They sell items like electronics, watches, sockets, electric wires and beverages like packed juices and soft drinks, clothing, and street foods like biscuits, chips, sweet candies snacks.
The Addis Ababa Trade Bureau randomly chose the sites for the shops to legalize the informal street vendors found throughout the city.
According to the trade bureau the shops were placed in such a manner so as not to affect movement of people and they will crack down on sellers blocking foot traffic.
However, some residents say not enough preparation was done before deciding on locations for the shops.
Yohannes Gobeze, 34 from Arada sub city says there are already problems with increasing traffic accidents so if people are clogging the main roads by selling items, the problem will worsen.
According to the city’s traffic management agency, not all of the new shops are operating legally.
“The places have been selected by a small division of the administration (the Werdas). We agreed that every shop must receive approval from the agency before they start working but honestly speaking a few shops brought a letter to us in an attempt to become legal after they had already opened, so we will discuss this with other agencies to solve this problem.’’
Anecdotal evidence suggests the number of street vendors is increasing. The most recent study was in 2014, which showed an estimated 87,000 street vendors. However, there seems to be almost double that amount now as poverty leads people to use this as a means of survival and it takes up a higher and higher proportion of the informal economy.
