To celebrate the launching of Coke Studio Africa 2019, the coca cola company announced to give one birr on each plastic coca drink for the coming three months. The fund to be collected under the slogan of drink for goodness will be raised for three different charities.
Rophnan Nuri, Mahlet G/Ghiorgis, Bisrat Surafel, Abush Zekele, Yared Negu will also be featured on Coke Studio Africa’s 2019 edition.
Name: Kalkidan Tesfamariam
Education: BA in Accounting
Company name: Kalikidan Boutique
Title: Owner
Founded in: 2018
What it does: Selling women’s clothes
HQ: Weldia
Number of employees: one
Startup Capital: 70,000 birr
Current Capital: Growing
Reason for starting a Business: Financial freedom
Biggest perk of ownership: No boss
Biggest strength: Overcoming challenges
Biggest challenge: Tax
Plan: To expand the business
First career: ICT worker
Most interested in meeting: Bill Gates
Most admired person: Bill Gates
Stress reducer: Chill with my friends
Favorite past-time: Working
Favorite book: Derthogada
Favorite destination: Bahir Dar
Favorite automobile: Toyota Corolla
A fortnight ago I had to visit a renowned medical doctor for a checkup. Something was wrong within me after long years of life on this planet.
The hospital which was located in the eastern part of Addis Ababa was so famous that I had to wait for a couple of hours before I was called to move in to the examination room. It is common to see many people lined up in similar hospitals in need of better medical services. Many people, young and old were waiting for their turn with different moods. Some were watching TV, some were reading, some were fondling their cell phones, and some seemed to be listening to the suffering pain of their ailments… After two hours, I was called and given primary checkups for blood pressure, diabetes and body weight…
The doctor, a gentle man wearing a broad smile in his face greeted me looking in to my face. He took a close look at the yellow card with my name jotted down in bold. Then he threw a glance back at me.
“What’s wrong? Is there any problem, young man?” he asked, calling by my name.
“I don’t know, doctor. But I don’t feel healthy around here. Probably my heart is not good.” I said indicating part of my body where I was feeling the sickness.
“You don’t know? … Do you drink alcohol? Do you chew Kat?”
“No doctor, I only drink four to five bottles of beer a day… not more than that. I don’t chew Kat. Of course, I started drinking strong coffee days back… Can that probably be the cause?”
The doctor smiled and grabbed my right hand. He pressed his thumb on my wrist to check my pulse. “Hhh… No, coffee is not that much problematic for young ones like you… Of course, you don’t need to take too much. Besides, five bottles of beer a day is too much. …By the way, do you exercise?”
“I regularly walk.”
The doctor laughed and said, “have you seen the old lady who had left before you came in?”
“Yes, sir!” The lady he referred was so fat and old that she could hardly move her limbs.
“Yes, she is the one who has to do regular walking. You… you are not older than she is… What is that?” he asked pointing at my bulged-out belly. “Why don’t you remove that fatty mass off your body? Exercise keeps your body to be healthy. You will have better body shape and breathing system… I think there is no need to talk to you about the advantages of doing exercise. You have better do exercise. Did you hear that?”
I was ashamed of my ugly overhung belly and tried to suck it in. “Ok, doctor. I will start doing exercise. I will start running as of tomorrow…” I felt ashamed of myself.
“Yeah, you must do that if you really want to stay alive!” He prescribed me some drugs and sent me off.
I was alarmed. I thought I would die on the dot. A few days after, I joined my village friends in their week-end sport and exercise at Janmeda; the famous wide arena where public and religious events are conducted.
Many people, young and grownups including professional athletes are doing exercises in that large field. It is so grateful to be among the gatherings. I felt remorse for failing to come here long ago. Most of the time our gathering from my village takes hold of a small field with the grass faded out in the center. We do various exercises like rope skipping, running, sit-ups, push-ups… Then we split ourselves in to three teams to play football. At a time two teams join for the match. The defeated team is replaced by the third team for another match against the winner. The team which lost the match will stay out and act as a referee. This continues for about two or three hours. It is very interesting but tiresome and many of us are drenched in sweat. The football play is a good exercise. It gives us tough body movements. Of course, it is inevitable that a beginner will be tied up by cramp the next day. After the match, we all drop to the ground feeling very tired.
Then after, we all get together to move out of the field. This time we all are very thirsty and hungry. We walk listlessly towards the gate, which is located to the northern side of Janmeda. The surprising thing is that across the fence of that big field there is a new butcher shop. Fresh beef shining by big bulbs and flashes is hung up in an appetizing manner. People are going in and out of the butcher shop. After the exercise, it looks my friends feel like walking towards that butcher shop. I have observed that they don’t do it deliberately. Yes… it is very tempting and hard for us all not to drop in to the shop… We all are sucked in. Immediately after, some take hold of glass jugs of draught beer and some walk in to the back yard looking for hand washing basin.
Then comes Kurt (raw meat) piled up in a tray with several small knives, injera, loaves of bread, lemon and Awazie (liquid red pepper) in the middle. (the lemon’s juice is squeezed on the Awazie.) All of us sit around the table each holding a knife to cut and devour pieces of raw meat. I remember a note I read on the internet…
“Ethiopia is a nation who gradually live on raw meat, and it cannot be supposed that they have made great advancement in their cuisine,’ the Briton wrote in Narrative of Journey to Shoa, an 1868 account of his odyssey through Ethiopia, where he went with a British army mission to free some captive foreigners from the clutches of Tewodros, the increasingly erratic Ethiopian emperor.”
The surprising thing is that no one among us is heard saying a word against the gobbling up of Kurt (raw meat) after doing exercise or after burning a good amount of calorie. Rather, some were heard saying that they prefer the roasted one to the raw. Actually, this group is better than those of us who consume the Kurt (raw meat). Had it not been boring, I could have listed out many things regarding the disadvantages of eating this raw meat… Even worse is that we all grab the big frozen glass jugs of draught beer while consuming the raw beef.
After burning some calories in the sport field, we happened to spoil ourselves by stuffing our bellies with raw meat. How horrible this is! We burn calories in an effort to lose weight and keep ourselves healthy… But surprisingly we run to the butcher shop to gobble up raw meat. We are taking the risk of developing diseases like diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure… By the way, this has become a common trend almost everywhere in this country. There are many of us who line up in front of butcher’s shop after attending the famous Great Run. It looks we have become the slave of this harmful way of consumption.
By Haile-Gebriel Endeshaw
The writer can be reached at gizaw.haile@yahoo.com
Management may be classified into strategic management, product management, human resources management, financial & administrative management and marketing management. While most organizations have a financial or accounts department, it often strikes me that this department is limited to doing just that – accounting. Financial management however is more than that and provides analytical reports that inform management on the financial position of the company. The annual report of the company will include financial statements and management needs to find out what they say. Let us refresh our minds and look at some of the basics of accounting that will help.
Basically, accounting is the process of measuring and reporting an enterprise’s assets and liabilities, the owner’s equity being the difference between the two: Equity = Assets – Liabilities.
Assets are defined as an enterprise’s economic resources. However, in accounting, there are restraints on reporting their value. A business can report an asset only when it exists. For example, a company that signs a contract to build a dam can include the assets arising under that contract in its financial statements only when the work is done. Also, if somebody has taken a mortgage to buy a house, that house will only become an asset when the mortgage has been paid. Until then it is that person’s a liability and the bank’s asset. Most assets are recorded at their purchase price until there is evidence that prove that the value has changed.
Liabilities are present obligations either to convey assets or to render services to someone in the future as a result of past transactions. Most liabilities are payable in cash. The value of many liabilities can only be estimated. For example, consider the liabilities of an insurance company for claims that have not yet been reported. Liabilities that will be satisfied by providing services are easy to measure, like rents, subscriptions and ticket sales received in advance. The price of these has been established and either they have been performed or they have not – hence, the liability exists only for unperformed services.
The owner’s equity is the excess of assets over liabilities and therefore depends on how assets and liabilities are measured.
A financial report includes three major financial statements plus addition disclosures necessary for completeness. These disclosures are often called “footnotes” but “notes to the financial statements” would be a more accurate description. The three major financial statements are the following while most corporate financial statements also include the changes in the shareholders’ equity:
Balance sheet
Income statement, also called the profit & loss statement or earnings statement
Statement of cash flows
The balance sheet is a listing of, on one side, all the enterprises’ assets and on the other side the enterprises’ liabilities plus the owners’ equity. The assets are presented in order of liquidity. The first category is current assets, which comprises cash and assets that will be turned into cash (such as stock and debtors) within one year or the current operating cycle, if greater. Other categories include the long-term tangible assets, investments and intangible assets (copy rights, patents, goodwill for example). Intangible assets refer to assets that lack a physical presence, but hold significant value for businesses. They are the non-monetary resources and rights that contribute to a company’s competitive advantage, market position, and overall value. There may also be a category called other assets, for assets that managers are unable or unwilling to categorise.
Liabilities are classified between current liabilities, those payable within the period used to define current assets, and all other liabilities, which are called non-current liabilities such as long-term debts.
For corporate enterprises, shareholders’ equity is classified as paid-in capital, the amounts received as investments by the owners; retained earnings, the cumulative amount of earnings reinvested in the company; and treasury stock, a deduction for the cumulative amount paid buy the company to buy back its shares.
The income statement and cash flows are more dynamic than the static nature of the balance sheet. The balance sheet tells us where we are. The income statement and cash flow statement show us how we arrived there. They cover the period between two balance sheets. The income statement lists first the revenues of the company. Revenues are the gross increase in company value from selling goods and services to customers. Expenses are deducted from the revenues to obtain the profit or income. The make-up of the gross decrease in company value from the production and delivery of goods and services to customers. Expenses are the costs incurred to earn the revenues.
The statement of cash flows presents gross cash flows, both positive and negative, classified as operating cash flows, investing cash flows and financial cash flows. Operating cash flows are the flows relating to income statement items: collections from customers, payments to suppliers, employees, utilities, etc. Investing cash flows are the payments and receipts from buying and selling assets, buying other businesses, etc. Financing cash flows comprise the transactions by which the enterprise raises capital, including borrowing, debt repayments, dividend payments, proceeds from issuing share capital and amounts paid to buy back shares.
Now, using financial statements, comparisons can be made over time and period by period changes will provide information because each period’s statements have been prepared in a comparable way. More about financial statement analysis next week.
From: Mastering Management 2.0 – “How to read those financial reports” by Peter Knutson
Ton Haverkort
ton.haverkort@gmail.com
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