The Ethiopian Full Gospel Believers Church has restarted construction of their headquarters at the historical Ras Abebe Aregay home despite being denied permission from the Addis Ababa Cultural and Tourism Bureau.
The seventy year old 2,600 square meter home located in Adwa square near Aware was demolished by the church eight months ago because they wanted to replace it with a G+14 story building. At that time the Bureau stepped in and presented the church with an order to stop their action.
Capital observed that for the last two weeks a basement has been being dug by United Construction.
Zewdinesh Mola, Heritage Protection Expert for the Cultural Bureau told Capital that they are surprised by the church’s illegal action.
“The only information that we have is the construction is being blocked for because they were not supposed to have demolished one of our historical homes. However, the church has ignored our order and recently has begun construction so we will be forced to take further legal action to stop construction.”
“Historical sites and homes are one of our identities and to demolish them for other purposes without legal permission is a shameful act.”
The Ethiopian Full Gospel Believers Church said they restarted construction after the Bureau failed to bring documents testifying that the homes are clearly registered as historical sites.
“We are not against historical heritages but the Bureau said nothing to us when we started construction they came and stopped us and we appealed to the court and they decided in our favor and that is why we started construction,” a pastor from the church told Capital.
Ras Abebe Aregay was a major leader of the resistance in Shewa against the Italians during the fascist occupation, and leader of the largest anti-occupation force in Ethiopia. He was among the guerilla leaders that escorted the Emperor back into Addis Ababa on Liberation Day, May 5, 1941. Ras Abebe served as governor general of Shewa, governor general of Tigrai, Minister of Defense, Minister of the Interior, Crown Councilor and Senator at various times. He was killed during the Imperial Guard coup attempt of 1960 and was buried at Debre Libanos Monastery.
Konjit, the wife of Ras Abebe lived in the home. It was later sold to a businessperson and then to the church for 1.2 million birr 20 years ago. Previously Muller Real Estate demolished the first historical Ras Abebe Aregay home. It was listed as one of the 440 historical houses in the City’s master plan. It sits on 1,800sqm and was used as a residence for Ras Abebe Aregay and his families. Under the current heritage proclamation in Ethiopia if somebody illegally demolishes a heritage site they may face up to 10 years imprisonment plus a fine.
Church restarts construction at Ras Abebe Aregay home
Dashen’s new app
Dashen Bank has introduced a new Mobile application dubbed ‘Meda’ which allows its customers to send and receive money through mobile transfer, the new app which includes video, picture and text chatting also allows customers to buy air tickets and supermarket goods.
Dashen Bank’s President, Asfaw Alemu said at the launching ceremony held at Intercontinental Addis hotel, the app will enable customers to transfer and receive money from their friends easily.
Previously Dashen also introduced Amole, which offers mobile subscribers digital payment capability and access to aggregated digital products and services from retailers, entertainers, airtime dealers, bill payment points, airlines, social media players and third-party service providers.
Ekos Steel officially inaugurated
South Korean based company, Ekos Steel Plc was officially inaugurated last Tuesday in the presence of President Mulatu Tshome (PhD), who initially invited the company to invest here.
EKOs which obtained an investment license in June 2014 sits on 10 hectares of land plans to produce 210,000 tons of rebar and wire rod products to provide import substitution. When the second phase is completed they plan to enhance their capacity to 500,000 tons per year.
The company invested USD 30 million to create the company. It employs 100 people.
Finally our talk has changed into reality and I hope Ekos will play an important role in steel industry of my country,” President Mulatu said.
Shell H. Choo CEO of Ekos said his company will do his best to serve the local demand.
Claims lower for Global Insurance
Unlike the business trend Global Insurance Company, one of the oldest private insurers since the free economy was endorsed, indicated in their annual report that the claims incurred in the previous fiscal year were lower than the preceding year.
The insurance firm registered a ten percent higher gross written premium.
The annual report of Global Insurance indicated that in the 2017/18 financial year the total claims incurred were 38.7 million birr, which is 23 percent lower than the preceding period.
Usually there has been an increase in claims every year so this is a different result than normal.
In the 2016/17 fiscal year the total claims incurred at Global Insurance was about 50.6 million birr, which is the highest ever in its financial performance over the past 20 years.
The report added that the percentage of the gross claims incurred to gross written premiums also decreased from 61 percent to 47 percent in 2017/18.
Tibebe Tesfaye, CEO of Global Insurance, told Capital that in the reported period the insurance firm has taken several strict measures to reduce the claims.
“We have been applied a leakage control package and committee formed for check and balance mechanisms in terms of the settlement of claims,” he said. “It has helped us to control the claims strictly,” he added.
In addition, the insurance firm was prudently engaged in the mitigation of risks on underwriting selection, according to Tibebe.
Global, which formed in 1997, has sold 25,838 policies worth 88.3 million birr. Even though the stated amount is 26 percent lower than the target it went up by ten percent from the preceding year.
As the usual trend observed in the sector vehicle insurance generated the most premiums, followed by fire and marine, engineering and pecuniary classes of businesses respectively.
From the total claims paid in the year the motor sector stood at 27.2 million birr which is 79.4 percent of the total claims. The motor sector has continued leading claims in all insurance companies and continues to be a high risk for the sector. To tackle the challenges the insurers association has been undertaking a study to mitigate the challenge.
Despite challenging economic conditions in the past fiscal year because of the political condition, lack of adequate hard currency and low exports and imports, Global Insurance has registered significant growth compared with the 2016/17 financial year.
For instance, in the reported period the insurance company has achieved an underwriting surplus of 19.9 million birr, which was 12.7 million birr a year ago.
For the year the company has earned gross profits of 25.3 million birr before tax, while the net profit after tax stood at 19.5 million birr.
Compared with the preceding period the insurance firm has registered a gross profit of 29 percent and net profit of 15 percent.
Due to the paid up capital increase the earnings per share for the 2017/18 fiscal year stood at 98 birr, which was 112 birr a year ago.
The assets of the company has also increased by 13.5 percent in the ended fiscal year to 303 million birr from 267 million birr a year ago.
