Investors from Turkey are going to build an industrial park in southern Tigray zone at a cost of 750 million Euros.
The industrial park to be established on 500 hectares of land in Ade Gudem town, Hintalo woreda (district), will be fitted with latest technologies.
Kelelie Hagaze, administrator of Hintalo woreda, said his office is ready to prove the necessary support, including granting the land needed to build the park.
Construction of the park will commence in March. It will be fully completed in two years’ time, it was noted.
Turkish investors to build industrial park in Tigray with €750 mln
POLARIZATION & CONSEQUENCES
Neoliberal globalization propelled by crony capitalism is facing hurdles, yet again. Unlike before though, the current crisis is quite generalized, permeating all sectors of the global economy. At the height of neoliberalism, i.e., at the turn of the century, the much touted ‘Dot Com’ bubble went bust! To rectify the situation, central banks purposely inflated the housing sector. Old people were told to refinance their homes (remember the mantra; housing prices always go up) with a very low teasing interest rate. For a while it looked as if capitalism had finally delivered paradise on earth! Unsurprisingly (to the critically inclined) as soon as interest rates start to go up, millions of borrowers couldn’t keep up with their mortgage payments and promptly lost their houses!
The ‘Housing bubble’ that burst in 2008 threatened to unwind capitalism as we know it. Again, to rectify the situation, the global status quo pumped massive liquidity, this time directly, since all the active economic actors were tapped out and rendered nonfunctional, including the banks, consumers, etc., etc. Since 2008, plenty of phony money (over USD 50 trillions) was pumped into the global system by the various central banks/governments to thwart off the collapse of the modern world’s economic regime. This massive liquidity that came with no cost, (zero percent interest rate) created one of the largest bubble ever! Arguably, we are currently wallowing in the midst of the largest economic bubble in the history of all humanity! After such unprecedented indulgence by central banks/governments, everything became a bubble; real estate (housing & commercial properties), stocks, bonds, antiques, paintings, works of art, etc., etc. This generalized phenomenon currently obtains all over the world!
Polarizing globalization, which is a byproduct of un-tempered, greed driven accumulation process (neoliberalism) is now hitting the wall, so to speak. We believe it is dangerously approaching its historical limits. Symptoms are all over. In the very poor of the global South, polarization is manifested as a continuum of instability, increasingly leading to fragile, failing and failed states. Africa has plenty of cases. In the semi-peripheries, those countries that are the in-betweens (between the rich and the poor) economic downturn punctuated by abrupt currency devaluation resulting in cost of living increase (for the absolute majority) is flaring xenophobia leading to irrational policies! In the world of the rich, a clear trajectory of pauperism and depression (amongst the sheeple=human mass), leading to the polarization of politics, has become a vivid reality. Trumpism, Brexit, Le Pen, (France), AfD (Germany), Five Star/Lega Nord (Italy), Syriza (Greece), Podemos (Spain), etc., etc., are all reactions against polarizing globalization, whether the status quo acknowledges it as such or not!
Mass migration from the south to the north is accelerating. For some of the sheeple in the south, one way of escaping the punishing polarization is to just pack up and move north. Intense connectedness brought about, amongst other things, by globalized informatics, is making the journey north less intimidating. The South American sheeple seem to have joined this pilgrimage to anticipated affluence. Honduras has had ‘regime change’ few years back, instigated by the power that be. Thereafter came, a massively rigged election that brought a corrupt regime in power, which is bent on disfranchising the local sheeple. It is no coincidence we now have around 7000 Hondurans marching North, to the land of opportunity. As the dismemberment of Libya facilitated the migration of MENA’s sheeple (Middle East and North Africa) to Europe, ‘Regime Change’ in South America is also encouraging mass exodus to the promised lands of the Northern countries. It seems a ‘Regime of Migration’ (after all, migration is also change of domicile) is now in the offing, mostly as a reaction to the politics of ‘Regime Change’ and widespread polarization. The empire, particularly the hegemon, (once considered effectively an island, hence unreachable) must be a bit perplexed by this recent bold behavior of the southern sheeple. One cannot help but reflect: Is this what the Hindu’s call Karma? See the articles next column.
It is obvious we are now living in a highly parasitic world that has very different value systems than the ones promised by capitalist modernity. When central banks take massive stakes in the global equity markets, (to protect the financially connected), when interest rates go negative, when junk bonds are considered premium, almost at par to sovereign bonds, when nature destroying overproduction is touted as growth, etc., etc., one is forced to resort to ancient wisdoms. A tongue in cheek blessing of the Chinese might come in handy for the task at hand: “May you live in interesting times.” Good Day!
Women power
First female president of the Supreme Court
The House of People’s Representative (HPR) approved the appointment of President and Vice President of the Federal Supreme Court nominated by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) on November 1.
Accordingly, the House unanimously approved the appointment of Meaza Ashenafi as President (the first female president) and Solomon Areda as Vice President.
Meaza served as a Judge of the High Court of Ethiopia between 1989 and 1992. In 1993 she was appointed by the Ethiopian Constitution Commission as a legal adviser. She founded the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA), and became its executive director. She helped lead the development of the first women’s bank in Ethiopia, Enat Bank, which was established in 2011 and as of 2016 chairs its board of directors.
Solomon Areda, a former judge, is a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), an intergovernmental organization located at The Hague in the Netherlands.
Meaza after her appointment said that she will work to restore respect for the legal system in the eyes of Ethiopians who sometimes view the courts as biased or slow to respond.
“The people of Ethiopia love the law, and they respect the law. However, because justice is hard to come by for the people, they have lost trust in the law,” she said.
Meaza wants Ethiopians to view the court as able to hold all to account, including those in power.
“It is not enough for the law to remain on paper,” she said. “What makes the law purposeful is the court in the end. If one person is killed by a government body or is killed by another person, where he can find the solution is from the court. Therefore, if the court cannot afford the person speedy justice that is free of political pressure and corruption, the law loses meaning.”
Grade one contractors in hot water for audit gaps
Prominent local and international construction companies are being investigated under suspicion of tax evasion and tax fraud by the Ministry of Revenue (MoR).
Among the 33 large tax payer firms, multiple local and international construction companies were forced to pay more than two billion birr. Many of these firms have settled or are expected to pay their huge accrued tax bills to the Ministry.
Last week Capital reported that the Federal Police were undertaking an operation investigating the companies based on the Ministry’s audit report. Federal Police started investigating audit reports made last fiscal year but also reports from previous years as well.
The China ACMC Engineering Corporation P.L.C. was asked to pay 736.2 million birr which it later appealed and paid. Teklebrehan Ambaye was asked to pay the gap of 222.3 million birr discovered by the investigation audit while, China Railway Group LRT project was asked to pay 255.4 million birr.
Although some of these companies have already paid their back taxes, police continued investigating the audit in suspicion of existence of criminal activity.
The Ministry had previously sent the files to the Bureau of Investigation and the concerned department after examination had closed the case and reported its findings through a letter to the Ministry stating that there were no crimes found.
Employees of the Ministry however opposed the decision of the investigation bureau stating that the decision has to be made after a proper investigation has been conducted.
Following the reform of the executive police by the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) some closed files were re-opened.
“We were discouraged by the actions of the police and we were even feeling that the audits we make are useless,” an employee at the Ministry told Capital.
Orbit Construction’s two year audit had presented a 26 million birr gap from what they allegedly declared, but following their appeal to the Ministry, the amount was lowered to seven million birr according to Bekalu Menda, General Manager of the company.
“The investigation must be for a one million birr transaction made with a man who delivers sand for our site,” said Bekalu. “We understand he has printed receipts without the approval of the Ministry; and he is still working! If the Ministry wants to find him they can. But we paid that difference also to claim it back from him.”
The same thing happened with General Mercantile PLC which was expected to pay 17.75 million birr.
“We paid the claims through bank loan which has a 10% lower interest than the Ministry,” said Girma Kebede, owner of the company. “We purchased some spare parts, iron and cement but the receipts were not accepted by the Ministry. We made a claim to the Ministry but they say that it’s not their duty to check the legality of receipts issued with their machine.”
The Ministry announced this month that it does not know the whereabouts of over 400 cash register machines that are functioning in the country but are not connected with their server. These machines, they claim are printing receipts without transactions. The former Deputy Director Netsanet Abera confirmed to Capital that the receipts are not only being used for evading taxes but in addition the taxpayers have asked for tax refunds from the Ministry using these fake receipts.
“The problem has hit the innocent tax payers as well but many used it to reduce their cost,” said Netsanet at the press conference. “The ministry is also having dialogues to change or update the existing system and to paralyze the machines.”
“Whenever we found illegal receipts or similar transactions we sent the findings to the police to investigate if there were criminal elements including the intention of the companies,” said sources at MoR. “The legal enforcement, prosecution and the judiciary have to collaborate to bring all transactions to the legal scheme.”
Melcon Construction Plc faced a 78.4 million birr penalty and Bokera Construction was asked to pay 61.5 million birr. Orchid Business Group PLC was also asked to pay 55.5 million birr while Gemshu Beyene Construction PLC was asked to pay 74.2 million birr of an audit gap.
CREC was required to pay 64.41 million birr, and Get-As International received the 26.31 million birr audit gap.
Zong Mil Engineering Group, Satcon Construction PLC, Hunan Hunda Road, Fincha Fuafuate, HAWK International Finance & Construction Co. Ltd, are also on the list of those being investigated and expected to settle the amounts of 37.3 million, 35.6 million, 13 million, 4.1 million, 2.4 million birr respectively.
The large tax payers office affirms the actual tax remaining to be paid until the end of last week is 340,689,348.73 birr. The same statement revealed that the authority lifted a penalty of 83,567,867.01 birr and the amount paid by some has reached 349,156,679.67. “About 340, 689,348.73 birr is pending as the companies have appealed to the head office,” declared the statement.
The government has claimed that forged receipts and illegal vat reimbursement have become a threat to tax collection. It has also cautioned the business community that it will not tolerate illegal acts and will take measures on those involved.
