A new cleaning initiative was launched in Addis Ababa on Saturday December 9, which is one of the most daunting challenges urban centers in developing countries like Addis Ababa face.
Addis Ababa aspires to be a clean model city for cities of the continent by 2020, claims the City Government of Addis Ababa Cleansing management Agency’s vision. But considering the few years left to hit that deadline, imagining a clean Addis Ababa seems out of horizon.
During the initiative over 70,000 residents of the city participated including Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn (pictured above).

The government of Djibouti has decided to reduce the price of service at Doraleh Multipurpose Port (DMP), the biggest ever sea port facility in the Gulf of Aden. They are able to reduce their price because they have modernized services and thus minimized operating costs according to Wahib Daher Aden, CEO of DMP.
DMP was inaugurated May 24 by President Ismail Omar Guelleh of Djibouti and other top government officials from the region. It is capable of handing many cargo vessels at the same time.
During the press conference held at DMP compound, Wahib Daher Aden, announced the surprising port service charge reduction.
“I have very good news for you,” he said when he was asked about the price from a journalist that attended the press conference.
“The government of Djibouti has decided to decrease the prices of the DMP,” he told an Ethiopian media crew.
“So really there is a big decrease, it has been decided by the government of Djibouti and every forwarder and client in Ethiopia will get a notice,” Wahib added.
He explained that the decrease was applied to every cargo type including general cargo, vehicles, and dry bulk.
Experts said that it is a huge decrease. The CEO said that the government wanted to cut some of the costs from the operation at the port so it would remain sustainable.
He said that some of prices have gone down as much as 45 percent. In general the reduction is between 20 to 45 percent, according to the CEO.
He said that the new port will never be congested since the discharge is undertaken by the port owner itself.
“It is easy for the vessels and truck drivers to just come to the yard and load the cargo,” the CEO added.
The port, which is considered as one of the most advanced in Africa, was completed in March this year and received the first vessel in mid April.
DMP, which is under Port of Djibouti S.A. (PDSA), targets boosting the logistics activity in the region. It has consumed USD 590 million.
At the inauguration, Saad Omar Guelleh, General Manager of PDSA, said that the new 690 hectare facility is equipped with ultra-modern facilities that can accommodate 100,000 deadweight tonnage (dwt) vessels.
The project was started in 2015, and jointly financed by Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority (DPFZA) and China Merchant Holding (CMHC), which bought a 23.5 percent share of PDSA about four and half years ago. The state of the art port equipment was all manufactured by the Chinese firm ZPMC.
The geographical location of Doraleh Multipurpose Port provides a naturally deep large quay and 6 berths (to reach 15 berths in the second phase) at 16 to 18 meters in the first phase. The DMP will serve all conventional cargo vessels and related services. It will be linked to rail transport developing an integrated transport and economic corridor.
DMP is able to process 220,000 TEU and 8.2 million tons of non-containerized goods. So far the port has given service to 220 vessels and 1.7 million tons of cargo since it commenced operation about six months ago.
DMP has four separate terminals for handling containers, ro/ro, break bulk and bulk cargos.

The forum to harmonize business regulations in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) was held at Palace Kempinski Hotel in Djibouti, on December 6 and 7, 2017.
The forum that was organized by ABLE Network/Club 54 came up with legal ways to harmonize business regulations in the regional common market area.
The event held under the title: ‘Forum for Harmonization of Business Regulations in the COMESA Area’ included several legal actors from the region and lawyers from Djibouti.
Souleiman Ali Djama, Prosecutor General of Djibouti, told Capital that the forum is very interesting because it is talking about how to create African regional integration laws.
“It is specifically interesting because it is the first time that this kind of initiative has been hosted by a private network of lawyers,” he added.
“It is a good approach when talking about economic integration, it is in fact about business and contracts that automatically lead to lawyers and people who can help you and of course there is a lot of systems in different countries in the COMESA region so this kind of network of lawyers can help to make it easier to connect business people with different legal systems,” the Prosecutor General said.
“We have been working hard to unify on the common base in different countries on legal integration including the criminal cases,” he added.
The COMESA arbitration court ratified by many of the members is based in Djibouti and it is expected to be effective, according to Souleiman.
The forum includes several participants from different nations and has positively influenced integration and arbitration.
“Meanwhile Djibouti is the only Francophone country in COMESA, Anglophone and Arabic speakers are growing which makes the integration very easy for us,” the Prosecutor General said.
Maitre Ahned Abdourahman Chelk, who is one of the organizers of the forum said, “we decided to move on with the entire subject as the harmonization and facilitation of the economical and business law within the COMESA.”
ABLE Network/Club 54 is a leading Pan-African network and think tank, with members in 45 African countries and a dozen non-African countries.

The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) is going to implement a new scheme for approving letters of credit (LC). Banks are supposed to use the given price of items when they allocate hard currency.
The new scheme that banks are expected to adopt is that the LC amount that individual or companies request needs to be equivalent to the actual price of the imported items.
Currently any importer who wants hard currency for their import is not obliged to submit the price of the imported items at exporting countries’ markets.
Banking experts said that if an individual wants to import a vehicle that may cost USD 10,000 they would not be obliged to request the vehicle purchase price.
Under the current rules individuals or companies who want hard currency can get it from banks and the balance then is filled by different sources mainly from parallel sources or black markets.
A week ago NBE provided an introduction for bank officials and relevant officers about the new scheme, according to sources.
According to the new scheme banks must follow the Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority (ERCA) price rate for imported items that ERCA is using for tax and duty calculation.
Sources said that the price list of imported items brought from ERCA has already been distributed to the banks.
Experts said that the new scheme will be applied for imported items and that their price is already listed at the ERCA document. According to the information from ERCA over 5,900 items are imported from abroad.
The hard currency crunch that the country faces has forced the central bank to apply new rules and regulations regarding the management of hard currency at financial institutions.
The new scheme is targeted to cut the black market and illegal systems and force importers to use only the financial institutions as hard currency sources.
Experts at private banks said that the new NBE rule will contribute to increasing banks’ hard currency earnings and reducing illegal remittances, which are one of the major reasons for illicit finance flow.
Even though the issue has not been studied, importers are using finance from outside sources, who collect hard currency secured from illegal money transfers, for their imports, according Teklewold Atnafu, Governor of NBE, who spoke about the issue during his recent appearance at the Budget and Finance Affairs Standing Committee of the Parliament.
He explained in detail about this illegal hard currency market by giving examples.
He told the standing committee that the problem will be solved after the application of the new regulation.
“We are undertaking a study to stop these kinds of transactions,” he told parliament members. “We will follow the decision of the government,” he added.
According to recent statement, NBE, ERCA and the Ministry of Trade are undertaking a study to tackle under invoicing.
The government stated that most of the actual goods imported are not in par with the hard currency amount allocated by banks.
It has raised concerns of illegal hard currency sources and tax evasion.