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.

Lycee Guebre-Mariam organized a half a day Telethon and an evening of talent show on Saturday, December 9, 2017 inside the school’s compound.
The school organized the Telethon with the objective of collecting donations that go to scientific research against genetic diseases; more specifically Myopathy, a disease that affects the muscles.
“With the association of high school students and the ADFE, we decided to commit ourselves to this public health cause. We chose this because actions are clearly framed by an association (AFM) which has an irreproachable reputation in terms of monitoring its funds. Genetic diseases are also too often forgotten by research budgets that do not find them “lucrative” enough in terms of return on investment; citizen engagement for this cause is therefore fully justified,” stated Jean-Christophe Torres, Principal of the school.
He further stated that participation of Lycee’s students to help organize the event has been very good. “The students were informed by us. They did a lot, gave very good and many ideas that we had not thought of at the beginning. When given the freedom and opportunity to take initiative, my experience shows me that they are giving you back a hundred times. This is what happened for this action,” Torres underlined.
The event was not organized with a quantitative goal in terms of collecting funds. “We count on a strong mobilization to accompany us and help the research, we do our utmost to communicate on the event. The rest does not depend on us,” the Principal said before the event kicked off.
The school hopes to make the Telethon which was held for the first time this year, an annual event. Both the Telethon and the talent show were open to the public.