Semegnew Bekele (Eng.) (53) head of the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam (GERD) will be laid to rest today Sunday July 29 at the Holy Trinity Church.
The engineer in charge of the country’s flagship electricity project has been found dead at Meskel square on Thursday morning.
The body of Simegnew Bekele was found in his car parked at Meskel Square. Police have opened investigations into the possible cause of death and confirmed that he was dead by a gun shot.
The GERD is set to become Africa’s largest hydro dam with a capacity of 6,450 MW when completed.
Ethiopians all over the country have been expressing shock and sadness at the incident.
Ethiopia despite the breeze of a new political order which is expanding the political space is also facing security headaches in parts of the country. It has led the United States to openly call for the need to maintain the peace in these delicate times.
A series of arsons have been recorded in a number of prisons across the country whiles there is a bulging humanitarian crisis in the face of displacements from communal conflicts in some areas.
The most high-profile death till date occurred in May 2018 when the authorities set of to investigate the circumstances under which the country manager of Dangote cement was killed by unknown assailants.
At a time when the country was still under a state of emergency, the Command Post in charge of security said Deep Kamara the manager was killed along with two other individuals in the attack.
The Command Post at the time said it was hunting for the attackers and called on the local community to cooperate with security forces to help apprehend the criminals.
About GERD
Ethiopia stated earlier this year that the project was going well and expected to start partial test power generation soon. It is a major part of a massive energy infrastructure project the Ethiopian government is undertaking which aims to see the country’s power generation capacity increase from the current 4,280 MW to 17,300 MW by 2020.
The Ethiopian government has embarked on massive energy projects across the country with a view to succeeding in its plans to make the East African country a light industry hub in Africa and a middle-income economy by 2025.
GERD, whose construction started in April 2011, is being built at a cost of 4.7 billion U.S. dollars, fully financed from domestic resources and is expected to have a reservoir with a total of 74 billion cubic meters of water upon completion.
The hydro dam, which is being built on Blue Nile river 40 km from Sudanese border, has been billed as a landmark project signaling Ethiopia’s renaissance.
It has however been the center of a dragging diplomatic standoff between Ethiopia and Sudan on one hand and Egypt on the other hand. Egypt fears the USD 4.7 billion dam, that the Horn of Africa nation is building on the Nile, will reduce a water supply vital for its 84 million people, who mostly live in the Nile valley and delta.
Tragic death hits the nation
Technology should get proper attention to achieve GTPII
On the evaluation of the second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II) top government officials insisted the technology sector should get proper attention for the expected economic growth. The officials expressed their frustration on the expected achievement of the GTP. They have also stressed about reality of growth figures stated by the government.
Those who claimed that the country has to give attention for technology development claimed that the IT development has to be managed properly. “The country has to work on the production of technological products,” a participant who attended the event stated.
A representative from Ministry of Science and Technology said that the country imports USD 2.73 billion of industrial machinery and computers, USD 1.4 billion of vehicle and related equipments and electrical machinery import worth USD 1.3 billion that indicates that Ethiopia have to do strongly on value addition and technological productions. “Otherwise it would be difficult to fill the trade balance,” he said.
It has been presented by a representative of National Planning Commission that the GDP share in the 2016/17 budget year that the agriculture, service and industry sector has 36.3, 39.3 and 25.6 percents respectively.
25.6 percent of industry sector share of the GDP has also included construction and mining sector, which indicated that the manufacturing sector is minimal.
It has been reported that the manufacturing industry share is 6.4 percent that may include the mining sector, while the construction sector is 18.2 percent at the 2016/17 year.
“It is misleading that the industry sector is going to take over the economy since the manufacturing industry is not showing a sign of growing,” a participant said.
The leather and textile sector did not succeed as expected, according to the participants. They even claimed that it failed.
According to the document presented on the discussion, the actual achievement of the manufacturing industry is 27 percent in terms of export earnings in the 2016/17 budget year.
The plan was to earn over USD 1.3 billion, while the revenue earned in the stated period was USD 360 million, which was USD 377 million in the 2014/15 budget year. Potential manufacturing sub sectors textile and leather sector registered growth of 33 and 41.8 percents respectively.
According to the initial plan at the end of the GTP period in 2020 the export earnings have to reach USD 3.55 billion, which is almost tenfold of the revenue in 2016/17.
A participant says it is impossible to narrow the trade deficit by exporting primary goods. “We need to work on import substitution at least on some basic commodities like wheat, sugar and edible oil,” they added.
Participants also stressed their concern on the credibility of the figures given by the government. Some of the participants said that the GTP II would not be attainable as GTP I, which the government claimed that it achieved the first five year plan.
Participants recommended that revising the institutional capacity of government organs that are working for the implementation of the GTP. They reminded the projects that was commenced in the first GTP but never finalized until now.
One of the participants stated that he could not believe that banks follow the policy of the government in terms of loan provision. He reminded the loan provision that gave for rain feeding agricultural projects at Gambella region, while almost all of them failed.
“It has to be seriously revised, the monitory policy management in relation with the macro economy policy of the country,” he added.
Yinager Dessie (PhD), Governor of National Bank of Ethiopia, told Capital that study is under way to see challenges on the policy management.
