The Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority (AAWSA) says they have enough water to meet the needs of city residents but are struggling to distribute it.
While inaugurating a waste treatment plant at Kality on Saturday July 7 the head of AAWSA, Awoke Hailemariam blamed the hard currency shortage for the problem.
During a lengthy speech, he criticized banks for prioritizing hard currency distribution over other commodities when water is vital for everyone.
Awoke said that because there isn’t enough hard currency, several well drilling projects have been delayed since they require electromechanical parts. He wants the federal government to step in and help alleviate the problem.
In the past five years the authority has spent over ten billion birr secured from the government’s coffer and foreign loans to tap more water for the city. Rehabilitating dams and drilling new wells during the last five years has enabled the city’s water supply to increase to 92 percent from about 53 in 2013.
More needs to be done as demand continues to increase. The population of Addis is growing very rapidly and a large amount of infrastructure is being built, add that to the fact that some wells have not been dug and all this means that the current water coverage has dramatically declined from 92 percent in 2016 to 65 percent currently. So even though water production has increased the distribution and coverage has actually declined.
The production capacity of AAWSA has reached 618,000 m3 per day; meanwhile the demand stands at 866,540 m3 per day. Awoke said that the actual production capacity is 525,000m3 if there is not any interruption like power cuts on the distribution process.
Old pipeline networks, waste, lack of technology, power interruption, damage to pipeline networks, lack of adequate financing and low tariffs that do not cover the operation costs are challenges hindering the Authority from getting enough water to its citizens.
The AAWSA head seriously criticized negligence, corruption and theft at the Agency although he says these things have been reduced.
The Kality Waste Water Treatment became a reality through financing by the World Bank and the cost was covered by the government and World Bank. It can treat 100,000 m3 of water per day. USD 100 million came from the World Bank and 759 million birr from the government.
Mesfin Industrial seals 76 mln Birr deal to make poles for Aysha Wind Farm II
Mesfin Industrial Engineering P.L.C. (MIE) signed a USD 2.77 million deal with Dongfang Electric Corporation (DEC) to manufacture a pole to hold the wind turbines of the Aysha II wind farm.
Based on the commitment DECL made to the government to partner with a local company in the project, MIE was chosen based on its performance according to Daniel Gebre, Marketing Manager of MIE.
“We entered in to a Memorandum of Understanding with the company before got the project and now we signed to deliver the products within nine and half months,” he said.
The agreement which was signed July 5, 2018, will enable DECL to get some turbine carrying poles, others will be imported.
This will help transfer technology and save foreign currency while increasing the competitiveness of the company.
The wind farm which is going to have 80 turbines at 1.5 megawatts each is located in the Ethiopian Somali Region located 20km from Djibouti’s border which makes the project strategic. It will be in Aysha City which is located in the Shenele Zone of the region. Aysha City is where an industrial park will be built.
The region has more than four million people. It is the second largest region of the country next to Oromia, known for its livestock, crop production and lately crude oil extract.
Dongfang, an enterprise group directly supervised by the Chinese Central Government, is headquartered in Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan Province. The company has been involved in international project contracting for 30 years, and specializes in contracting for power stations.
This will be the fourth wind farm after Adama I, Adama II and Ashegoda wind farms which have a capacity to generate 324 Megawatts in total.
Labor Union critical of EIIDE’s excessive rent
The basic labour union of the Ethiopian Industrial Input Development Enterprise (EIIDE) has filed a claim to the Ministry of Industry (MoI) about the challenges that the enterprise faces.
In the 15 page letter employees address what they feel are strengths and challenges of EIIDE.
The letter was sent to MoI on Monday July 9 and copied to nine public offices including the Office of the Prime Minister, Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation, Ministry of Trade and the EIIDE board. In it 14 problems were addressed. The enterprise was expected to feed the industrial sector by supplying inputs and encouraging the producers to distribute manufactured products with widespread distribution centers across the country.
However they stated that several problems like misconduct and lack of proper management have caused the body to be endangered.
According to the letter that Capital obtained, the management and the former board have not managed the organization well.
The enterprise is renting an office around Vatican Embassy for around 13 million birr a year. That price rises one million birr every year.
Mohammed Awel, Chairman of the trade union.
says the enterprise uses the building located in Piazza as its head office.
EIIDE was formed about four years ago by taking most of the operation of Merchandise Wholesale and Import Trade Enterprise (MEWIT), which was established in 1993 through a merger between trading groups, including the Ethiopian Domestic Distribution Corporation and the Ethiopian Import Export Corporation.
The letter claimed when MEWIT was formed the office of the Import Export Corporation was not transferred to MEWIT and it should be returned and an additional office made for EIIDE rather than paying a huge amount for rent.
They also said that there have unlawful sales and procurement of rebar.
The letter indicated some managers overseeing millions of birr have fled abroad or abruptly quit.
The 3,000 employee enterprise handles 14 billion birr in materials. They letter is asking for the governments help to properly manage the agency.
Recently Capital reported that about three months ago the founding CEO of EIIDE, Asfawossen Alene fled to the US with his deputy, the CEO for Procurement, Abay Kebede.
Employees said there has been corruption at the agency related to rebar fraud.
In his email Abay sent to Capital from the US he argued that he did not flee to the US but instead is on annual leave for medical reasons. However the human resource division reported that Abiy is absent from his duty without getting approval for annual leave.
EIIDE recently hired a new board chairperson and other new blood in the board of directors including MelakuAlebel, the recently appointed Minister of Trade, who was assigned to chair the board, and Ahmed Tussa, the recently assigned State Minister of Finance and Economic Cooperation.
The former board was chaired by Mebrahtu Melese (PhD), who is now state Minister of Trade.
Capital’s effort to talk BogaleFeleke, State Minister for the Ministry of Industry, who is responsible to look after the enterprise, was unfruitful.
CBE revamps its ATMS
CBE has been installing improved ATM, automated teller machines software since last Sunday which means faster transaction service.
The bank started the customer data migration and updating of the machines, according to Belihu Takele, communications manager of the Bank. The procedure took a week to finish updating the 800 ATMs out of the 1,700 machines in existence took a bit longer than expected due to technical failures.
The new software is loaded on the bank’s servers to manage the card related services.
Customers whom Capital talked with expressed frustration over the service interruption during the transition. Belihu said that the bank would have warned its customers if it knew the delay would happen.
“The change in the switch was being done with a project which will enable improved and additional services,” Belihu told Capital.
Long rows, both at the ATM stations and cashiers windows, were observed and customers were forced to spend hours waiting to withdraw cash.
The bank which currently holds 4 million cardholders conducts 400,000 transactions through its automated machines in Ethiopia according to Belihu. The bank has more than 16 million depositors in 1,240 branches withholding 510 billion birr worth of assets.
The 75 year old bank loans 437 billion birr and currently has 50 thousand staff.
