The United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) granted USD 1.1 million to finance the Tulul Moye geothermal power plant feasibility study project.
Expected to be finished in less than a year, the study will measure the sustainability of the project.
The grants will help the company conduct the feasibility study for the first phase of the projects; 50MW of the total 520MW, at the Eastern Arsi Zone Iteya town Tulu Moye area.
Katrien Hinderdael, USTDA’s representative at East Africa and the Tulu Moye and Darrell Boyd, CEO of the project signed the agreement last week.
Troy Fitrell, during the signing the Charge d’ affairs of the US Embassy in Ethiopia, said the US will continue helping Ethiopia utilize its natural resources and achieve its own goals.
Also, Frehiwot Woldehanna (PhD), State Minister of Water, Irrigation, and Electricity, recognized the support from the US government as crucial to helping the most unutilized resource of the country.
Ethiopia is expecting to get 1,000MW energy generated for the Corbetti and Tuli Moye projects. It obtained USD four billion from private investors.
US donates grants for Tulu Moye geothermal project
Chemical dumping, irrigation, killing Lake Ziway
Commercial and small scale farming is killing fish in Lake Ziway.
The 31km long and 20km wide lake faces a critical decrease of fish production as farmers use the lakes water for irrigation.
19.3 million cubic meters of water pumped per annum for livestock, domestic, irrigation, commercial farms and construction. The water is estimated to be worth over USD 89 million. However the farms are not being charged for taking water from the lake. Form the pumped water 54.1 % is being taken by commercial farms growing flowers and grapes near the lake while 31% is taken for small scale farming.
The recent study conducted for the Ministry of Environment reports that the lake’s annual fish production has decreased to 1,000 tons from 3,500 tons. This has occurred as the lake’s depth has decreased to four meters from twelve.
This has caused fish to die off and some species to become extinct. Previously the lake had 12 species of fish. Now that number is down to three; the Carassius, Catfish and Tilapia.
Meanwhile overfishing is occurring at the lake as beach seines, gillnets and loglines, used for fishing, disturb the fish.
If that were not enough, Chemical waste is being thrown in bulk from the farms to the lake as over 8,000 trap fish to eat in the lake.
Over 18,300 people bathe in the lake and 5,158 boats trips are carried out per year.
The report states: the major cause for the accelerated water quality changes in the lake were identified as human impact in the catchment of the lake. This includes land use changes, particularly removal of vegetation cover, irrigation, diversion of inflows and industrial use of the water which have caused a decline in water quality and quantity directly impacting the current change in fish composition and abundance. Therefore, sustainable utilization and conservation measures should be taken. In Lake Ziway, large numbers of small sized fish of all species are being exploited and proper management actions are required to protect the immature fish. Particularly, the size of the captured stock should be determined taking in to consideration the size at first maturity of fishes.
A swift ecosystem payment service and tight regulation should be applied to reduce the discharge of toxic chemicals into the lake. Many pumps are abstracting freshwater from the lake including commercial farms. Even during the rainy season water for horticultural crops is collected from the lake. Hence, the current irrigation practices in the upstream areas have considerably reduced the volume of the inflowing water from the Meki and Ketar River and the lake itself, critically impacting the water level of Lake Ziway. As a result, the lake ecosystem is being affected by catchment degradation, siltation, and imbalance between water inflow and outflow.
Gangs robbing condos
Gangs armed with guns and knives are repeatedly robbing 40/60 condo projects which are close to completion.
Just this last month over ten robberies occurred at condo sites located in Bole Bulbula, Hayat and Megenagna sites; places where over 5,000 houses are being built. The bandits came at night and stole over one million birr worth of electrical wire and steel.
When Capital visited a condominium site in Megenagna known as ‘tourist site’ last Wednesday a store key had been cut and over 300,000 birr of electric wire was stolen from it.
Meaza Asrat a store keeper at tourist site told Capital that a group of gang members came in a mini bus, cut the key with saw and stole the electric wire.
“The guard told us that a group of people came with car and flashed a light in the guards faces so they couldn’t identified the men who were behind the crime and then the gangs broke into the store and stole the wire and put it in their car and drove off.’’
She added that the gangs come twice a week and that the police don’t stop them even though they have reported the robberies.
Another engineer at the same site told Capital one of the guards was injured trying to stop the gangs from entering.
In a mid-week press conference the Addis Ababa Police commission said robbery is widespread in the city and majority of the crimes are committed by people who were recently released from prison.
The commission advised residents to expose the gangs to the police.
In related news Vice Mayor of Addis Ababa, Takele Uma who visited the 40/60 condo projects said the finished houses will be transferred to beneficiaries till the end of October.
He urged site engineers to finish the projects on time.
The site engineers expressed concern that electric power and some input materials are in short supply which makes it difficult for them to do their job properly. Takele promised his administration will work tirelessly to overcome their challenges.
Recently Capital reported that the Addis Ababa Saving House Development Enterprise is in discussions with the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) to transfer 17,000 condos which are in the verge of being completed in Gerji, Bole Bulebula, Hayat Meri and Summit.
Apparently the enterprises have the responsibility to accomplish all the construction of the homes but to answer the high demand of the beneficiaries the finishing work might be transferred if CBE agrees.
Study says terrorism, NGO laws unconstitutional
The Federal Attorney General is going to hold a public hearing on the planned amendment of anti-terrorism and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) laws next month.
Taye Dende’a, public relations and communications director for the Attorney General, told journalists that the meeting will help gather inputs to enrich both laws.
According to him, the public hearing will be conducted from the beginning of September 2018.
In addition to the public hearing, two workshops will be organized, he noted.
In a related development, research from a 10 member legal advisory committee on the Charities and Societies Proclamation and the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation was presented to the public last Saturday.
Debebe H. Gebriel, presented the study’s findings which criticized the Charities and Societies Proclamation. It referred to the hierarchy of laws when it said the proclamation violated the constitutional rights of citizens and international laws of which Ethiopia is a signatory party.
“The right to association in the constitution is clearly violated by this proclamation,” reads the study. “The law uses financial restriction to monitor the role of civil societies and that rapidly diminishes the role of the nongovernmental institutions and their number too.”
Blen Sahilu said the anti-terrorism law was enacted to implement the political interest of the ruling party. The study argued that this and other laws were made to suppress opposition parties after the 2005 election.
The study attempted to understand why the law was issued in the first place. Ethiopian previously would defend its use of the law at the United Nations Security Council prior to 2005.
Suddenly the government changed its firm stands started to say that there are terrorist threats and presented incidents which happened before 2005 to convenience the council. Also, the country uses its geology to be exposed to possible threats, as Al-Shabab based in the neighboring and stateless country.
The study refers to the resolution of the council which asked why the anti-terrorism law only for the was necessary for trans-boundary terrorism, but not domestic ones.
The introduction of the proclamation as benchmarked the developed nations anti-terrorism law model was among the hardly pounded arguments by the study. Developed nations which have such proclamation have also various mechanisms and institutions protecting citizen’s human and political rights, according to the study.
The countries which Ethiopia brought the law are now said to improve their law.
Activists, bloggers and opposition party members, some convicted and others suspects, said that the need for the terrorism law in unnecessary as it forms terrorists rather than protecting one.
“Many political party members were forced to enter into armed conflict with the government because of this law and also I am a convicted terrorist just because of my opinions,” Atnaf Brhane of the former Zone-Nine-bloggers said.
Atnaf also presented a third choice to the council to cancel the current proclamation and issue a brand new one.
The Team presented a new approach to the compensation of terrorism victims to cover the damages caused to innocent suspects. Atnaf said the victims who lost several years of their lives, human and democratic rights will be compensated enough if the proclamation is dumped.
“As we are not allowed to speak or distribute information, I and my colleagues would put up posters after midnight when the government argued there was a terrorist threat,” said Yonatan Tesfaye, a former member of Semayawi Party and victim of the proclamation. “The government uses the law and institutions to suppress the rights of citizens especially freedom of expression and the nation is peaceful.”
The vague and broad terminologies of the proclamation were strongly criticized both by the study and participants of the consultation workshop.
“The proclamation forgets the basic principles of legal drafting which is to be general. The case is even more serious in the criminal law,” Blen said. “The law didn’t consider the crime establishing elements, motive, action, and violation of a specific law, to establish a suspect a terrorist,” she said.
The council is going to have a similar consultation with different parties and is planning to finalize its recommendations within a month.
