The Federal High Court’s 20th Civil Bench has given a final verdict in favor of Koracon Construction, which sued Gimb Gebeya Market SC, a company formed by traders at the prominent market location called Gimb Gebeya in Adama Town. The defendant will have to pay 110 million birr and interest and compensation for breaching a contract agreement.
The case was filed by Jibril Geresu, owner and General Manager of Koracon, in May 2017 at the Federal High Court Civil Bench when Gimb Gebeya failed to settle a payment. They had made several attempts to collect the money for building a market center at Gimb Gebeya, Adama Town.
According to the lawsuit a contract was signed in January 2014 for the phase II project, and again for the third phase project in July 2015.
Based on the agreement the second phase project cost 191.233 million birr including VAT, while the supplementary agreement which was signed in March 2016 added further work at a cost of 50.8 million birr including VAT.
According to court documents filed in May 2017 the total cost of the third phase was over 153.6 million birr including VAT.
When the project started however, the client wanted to pay under other terms than they agreed to. According to the deal, the project consultant, ETG Designers and Consultants plc, was supposed to approve any payment request.
“The consultant is responsible for evaluating the project and approving payment requests from the contractor,” the document explained.
The lawsuit reads that even though the company has submitted a payment request approved by the consultant in December 2015 for over 41.25 million birr and in March 2016 for the payment of close to 38.5 million birr for the second phase of the project the payment was not settled by the client.
At the same time the payment request for the project done on the third phase and approved by the consultant in May and August 2016 for the payment of 32.25 million birr and 11.2 million birr respectively, the defendant did not pay as the same as the previous payment request, according to the claim by the plaintiff.
The plaintiff stated that meanwhile it did not receive any payment it has settled the VAT payment for the government.
Even though the defendant was behind in its duty, the plaintiff borrowed from the bank and used the money that it secured from other sources to continue the project as per the initial contract agreement, according to the charge it filed.
The charge stated that the plaintiff wrote two letters in May and July 2016 asking to be paid in order to keep working but they never were.
Since May 2017 the case has been heard at the Civil Bench of the Higher Court until a final decision was handed down last Friday afternoon.
The court verdict indicated that the defendant should pay the 110 million birr to cover the cost of the project undertaken by the contractor and audited by the public enterprise, Ethiopian Construction Design and Supervision Works Corporation. The verdict will also include interest and compensation for the company besides the 110 million birr.
Gimb Gebeya SC is a company formed by about 400 traders that have businesses at the old market place at the heart of Adama town, 98km east of Addis Ababa, which was forcefully taken over by the city administration and transferred to investors.
The project owned by Gimb Gebeya SC is now located on the northern part of the town at a place called Minjare Street. Currently the market is one of the major trading centers in the town, while residents in the city claimed that the old place has not been developed properly.
Koracon wins 191m birr lawsuit over Gimb Gebeya
Simpler water payments
The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) and the Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority (AAWSA) agreed to collect water bills for its 550 thousand customers through any of the CBE transaction mechanisms.
The agreement allows customers to pay without hassle and minimize additional cost, said Bacha Geni, president of CBE.
CBE and the Authority are working to finish connecting their networking systems before they start the service. The Authority is registering and clarifying customer’s documents.
“Rendering the services through CBE will make more satisfied customers and upgrade payment collection, said Zerihun Abate, Manager of AAWSA.
Delivering a digital payment system reduces cash flow risk and modernizes its service delivery, added Dereje Fufa, banking sector vice president.
Dogs to help sniff out smuggling
In an attempt to stop wild animal smuggling through Bole International Airport, The Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority (EWCA) plans to deploy four detection dogs.
The dogs will come from Holland and will be trained to sniff and to catch rhinoceros horns, pangolin scales and ivory tusks at the airport’s custom security gates.
EWCA signed a memorandum of understanding with the Airport Enterprise, Federal Police, Custom Office and Information Network Security Agency so they can work together to get the dogs here faster.
Sponsorship by the Africa Wildlife Conservation (AWF) made it possible to purchase the dogs. Six Ethiopians will be trained in Tanzania to handle the dogs.
Bole International Airport has been identified as a major transit hub for wildlife trafficking, which was clearly evidenced in the recent report of Wildlife Crime.
Between 2011 and 2015, more than 700 people were arrested in connection with illegal ivory trafficking. A majority of those arrested at BIA were transit passengers with a sizeable number of passengers picking Ethiopia as their first departure location. An analysis of the origins of the flights from which ivory and wildlife products were detected at BIA in Ethiopia shows that flights from Nigeria and Angola took the largest share 20.45 percent and 19 percent of arrests respectively followed by DR Congo 8.99 percent Equatorial Guinea 8.82 percent , Ghana 6 percent and Congo Brazzaville 5.5 percent. However, the origins of the ivory tusks are not known and therefore subject to speculation.
Daniel Pawlos, EWCA Wild Life Traffic Director told Capital that the sniffing dogs will help Ethiopia combat illegal wildlife trafficking.
“It is a shame to see such a huge volume of wildlife trafficking in our country, we have an institution to combat this so we need to do something and getting dogs that can sniff out wild animal parts is a first step,” Daniel told Capital that the cost has not yet been determined.
Elephants, lions, tigers and rhinoceros are targets of illegal hunting and trafficking in Ethiopia and the demand for lions’ bone for traditional medicine is exacerbating illegal lion hunting.
The illegal trade of wildlife is the fourth most lucrative black market in the world – worth around USD 20 billion a year and impacting more than 7,000 species of animals and plants. Criminal organizations involved in wildlife trafficking are often directly connected to other trafficking networks, including the smuggling of narcotics, arms and people and exploit the increasing connectivity of global air transportation to traffic the endangered species. The air cargo industry is one of the key aviation sectors acting to break the supply chain from source to consumer.
Agency expected to suspend neck sleeve packaging on bottled water
The National Standardization Council, which is responsible for approving the national quality and standardization strategy proposed by the Ethiopian Standard Agency (ESA), is expected to suspend neck sleeve packaging on bottled water and juice when it meets later this month.
The council that meets every three months is expected to undertake its fourth and last meeting for the current budget year in this month. The meeting will evaluate several issues related with standards.
According to Ethiopian Bottled Water and Soft Drinks Manufacturing Industries Association (EBWSDMIA), the process got a green light by ESA who is responsible to table the case for the council, which is chaired by Fetlework Gebregziabher, Minister of Trade and Industry.
For the past one year since its formation, the association has been lobbying relevant government bodies, bottlers besides conducting a detailed study for the contribution and effect of the neck sleeves packaging, which is common in Ethiopia’s water industry.
Ashenafi Merid, General Manager of EBWSDMIA, told Capital that not only the study of the association but others like Ethiopian Environment and Climate Change Commission indicated that the production has negative impact for the environment since the packaging is plastic and is difficult to collect.
“The packaging is very small and cannot be easily retrieved so it will affect the environment,” Ashenafi explained.
Ashenafi reminded that the association’s study covered three areas that include the benefit of neck sleeves on the health aspect, economic and environmental aspects.
“Regarding the economic aspect for instance there are about 80 water bottlers in the country the use of neck sleeves on their packaging based on their capacity each bottlers allocate from USD 30,000 to 40,000 to import the packaging, which is a huge cost for the factories,” he said. He added that it affects the environment, while there is no contribution for the health or quality of the production that is proved on other countries. “As per our study Ethiopia is the only country that use neck sleeves on packaging,” he explained.
Solomon Tadele, Director General of Food, Beverage and Pharmaceutical Industry Development Institute told Capital that neck sleeves packaging is not common in other countries and it is not mandatory on Ethiopia’s standardization rule.
Solomon said that such kind of packaging is costing the factories by importing machines for the specific packaging, additional labour cost for the operation besides importing unnecessary raw material.
He reminded that quality is not related with such packaging.
Ashenafi noted that by tradition pioneer water bottlers started the neck sleeves packaging followed by the late comers, but it could not be a measurement for standard or quality.
He said that several relevant government bodies have accepted their argument to stop using the packaging. Solomon confirmed that the institute wrote a support letter for ESA as per the request of the association.
The association head said that Food, Medicine and Healthcare Administration and Control Authority and Ethiopian Environment and Climate Change Commission supported the proposal of the association and wrote a letter for the agency to suspend using packaging on the water or juice bottling.
Ashenafi said that the technical committee under the agency that comprised several experts and relevant bodies including the association evaluated the case. “In April we presented our detailed study for the committee,” he added.
He explained that that the agency is expected to file the case for the council to give a final decision that would impose restriction factories to suspend using neck sleeves on their production.
The council has about 14 members including pertinent government body like Food, Medicine and Healthcare Administration and Control Authority, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture and Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Association from the private sector.
It is the higher body which approves the national quality and standardization strategy proposed by the agency, and the council determines products for the use of national standard mark and also approve mandatory standard requirements which are proposed by the respective national technical committee on a certain products and services standards which are to be regulated from the safety, health, environmental and national security.
