The former chief economist and vice governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), Bekalu Zeleke, began working as president of the Bank of Abyssinia (BoA) a day after the Ethiopian Christmas holyday. In addition three new vice presidents (VPs) were also assigned by the board of directors which is being chaired by Meseret Taye.
A few months ago, the former president, Mulugeta Asmare resigned from his position. When he did so,
Sources said that as per the time frame that Mulugeta gave, the new president officially started his work as of January 8.
The board approved the position of two new VPs about two weeks ago and another one became acting VP during a special meeting of the board of directors held on Thursday.
The three VPs that assigned by the board are Meseret Assfaw, chief enterprise officer, and Daniel Hailu, chief information officer, Asaminew Deribew, who was assigned last Thursday will manage the chief customer service, according to sources.
Currently the bank has five VPs and two executives under its structure.
Under his leadership in the past five years Mulugeta has registered magnificent performance at the bank. Previously they experienced trouble with non-performing loans. Bekalu, who also registered several achievements under his leadership at Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), the state financial giant, has been assigned as chief economist and vice governor of the central bank by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD), but he left after a couple of months service.
When he was president of CBE he registered massive deposit mobilization and expanded the bank’s branches by close to four fold. The total number of CBE’s branches has now reached about 1,300 from 220 as of June 30, 2010.
Bekalu has been president of CBE for close to a decade by replacing Abe Sano, who is now president of Oromia International Bank.
BoA is one of the two oldest private banks and in the past decade it has made several remarkable achievements.
In the past fiscal year the bank that has 2.56 billion birr paid up capital has registered assets of 31.9 billion birr for the year, which was 25.8 billion birr a year ago, while their capital has reached 4.3 billion birr which is a 27 percent increase. The paid up capital, assets and others statements put the bank one of the top three on the private banking industry.
The number of depositors at the bank has dramatically increased. In the 2016 /2017 fiscal year the number of depositors stood at 750,000, while it has now increased by 35 percent and reached more than one million.
Besides the growth in the number of customers the bank’s deposit mobilization went up by five billion birr within a single year.
The report indicated that the total deposit mobilization at the end of June 30, 2018 reached 26 billion birr, which was about 21 billion birr a year ago. The growth of deposit mobilization has placed the bank as one of the most competitive banks and a key player in the sector.
In terms of advances and loans BoA has facilitated close to 4 billion birr during the fiscal year amounting to a total of 18 billion birr.
Loans and advances grew by 28 percent compared with the preceding year. Term loans and over drafts grew by 35 percent. According to BoA’s financial report, the proportion of loans indicated that term loans took the lion’s share by 66 percent and over drafts and advances stood at 21.3 and 12 percent respectively. From the total loans domestic trade took the highest portion followed by exports, construction and industry.
Bekalu Zeleke takes reigns of BoA
Ermias Amelga in detention over Imperial hotel transaction
The infamous business person Ermyas T. Amelga was arrested by the Federal Police and appeared before the Federal High Court on Friday, January 11. The arrest was related to the procurement process of the Imperial Hotel which he sold on February 2, 2012.
The government military complex, Metals and Engineering Corporation (MetEC), bought the hotel with 75 million birr from Ermyas with two round payments, divided within several months. The hotel was bought by Access Real-estate two years before at a total cost of 47 million birr, from Afaw Tefera’s family.
The hotel which lies on 3,411sqm was among the suspected buildings that MetEC owned which were subject to corruption.
A move towards state of the art
Great Run Ethiopia has launched a new website with the latest technology called progressive web apps. The website is able to operate well in every online platform and is mobile friendly. The previous website of the company got 1.7 million hits last year. The development of this new website will eliminate the paper based registration within five years.
“Progressive web application is the latest technology created by Google a few years ago,” Dr. David a delegate from the UK stated. “It takes the advantages of what you get on the desktop to a telephone, which saves a lot of money. The technology is said to add many new features to the website including saving dates and Google can save with it a security certificate.”
The adoption of the new technology is also expected to make the events organized and make it more accessible outside the country and facilitate the communication with its customers.
Online reservations for the 19th Great Run was also launched last week and will be conducted using the website.
Ministry begins counting water and wash facilities
To get an accurate picture of Ethiopia’s water infrastructure, the Ministry of Water, Irrigation & Energy (MoWIE) has started a count which will take a maximum of two months.
Pipelines that connect villages and houses, communal water, and water stores, and dams will be counted in the census.
The counting will cover all the nine regions and the two city administrations and will involve an estimated 600,000 water facilities and infrastructure.
An audit system, investment return, and software and manual administration drinking water institution will also be looked at during the counting.
To conduct the work, the ministry bought 4,475 tablet computers with USD 2.1 million and 4,000 counters and 500 coordinators are participating in the work.
Seleshi Bekele, Minister of MoWIE told journalists that the counting will be a good thing for all stakeholders who work on water related issues.
“From policymakers to regulators the counting will help us to know exactly where we work and I urge all stakeholders to collaborate with us to finish this task.’’
Seven years ago the Ministry conducted the same kind of counting but the result did not bring about what was expected.
Water crisis is one of the most serious global issues of our time. There are nearly 61 million people living without access to clean water. This means that about 7.5% of the global water crisis is in Ethiopia alone. Plus, nearly 65 million people live without access to improved sanitation, and approximately 27 million people still practice open defecation. The vast majority of those affected live in rural, hard to reach places.
Ethiopia’s future plans for economic growth call for expansion in irrigated agriculture, manufacturing, hydropower and municipal water supply – all of which depend on reliably available water. At the same time, Ethiopia’s population is set to nearly double by 2050, increasing the country’s overall thirst. This demand for water is clustered in cities, which are home today to nearly 20 percent of Ethiopians, compared to only 6 percent in 1960. Historically, Ethiopia’s economic prosperity has been heavily driven by rainfall and water availability. Recent periods of GDP growth and poverty reduction also coincided with periods of more reliable rainfall and greater public investment. In contrast, previous periods of drought have severely constrained economic growth and exacerbated food insecurity. Given the country’s historically highly variable rainfall patterns, the unreliability of rainfall has played a significant role in Ethiopia’s development — and the health and growth of its children. As of 2014, 40.4 percent of children under age five suffered from stunting. Increased water scarcity decreases crop yields, which causes food insecurity and nutritional shortcomings in the crucial early years of children.
