Belgian brewery, Unibra Group and Castel Group, which owns BGI Ethiopia sealed a deal to transfer Unibra’s share of the recently joined brewery Zebidar, to Castel on Thursday January 18.
It has been rumored that the two bodies were negotiating to sell shares of Unibra to the leading brewery in Ethiopia.
Details have not been given but official information obtained from BGI indicated the two companies have agreed to transfer the shares of Zebidar to Castel Group.
Unibra is the major shareholder at Zebidar with an ownership of 60 percent, while the balance is managed by about 1,100 shareholders.
The brewery commenced production just a year ago with a unique pull-off cap bottle and an investment of 1.3 billion birr. The factory that has a production capacity of 350,000 hectoliters per year is located around Wolqite, Gubre zone, SNNP, 136km west of Addis Ababa.
Recently BGI agreed with shareholders of Raya Brewery to buy the balance of the factory which is the only one in Tirgay region. BGI already has a 42 percent share of Raya, while the share transfer has not yet concluded, according to sources.

A recent drought, poor economic conditions, massive migration to cities like Addis Ababa, Hawassa and Nazareth, along with parents who place a low priority on education have contributed to over 493,000 students from Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR) dropping out of school this fiscal year.
According to information that Capital obtained from the SNNPR Education Bureau 436,000 primary and 56,943 high school students dropped out or did not come to school at all.Benchi Magi and South Omo zones had some of the highest dropout rates as 4.6 million students between first and eighth grade or 9.7 percent of the youth population did not attend school when it began in the middle of September. From this figure 625,754 high school students or 9.2 percent of the student population left their schools.
Sixty percent of the students who dropped out of primary school were girls. Among high school age students 60 percent of the dropouts were males.
There is a school feeding program which provides breakfast and lunch to students. This is funded by the World Food Program, the federal government and the SNNPR Educational Bureau. The budget for this program is 78 million birr. This has helped slightly decrease the dropout rate to 13 percent in 2016/17.
Some say that regions should offer free education during the evening hours and more economic assistance for parents to reduce the dropout rate.
One expert who requested anonymity said:
“Many of these students have parents who are farmers or have tough economic situations so their children are expected to help work during the day and it is hard for them to attend school. If there were classes at night it could help alleviate the situation or if parents were able to earn more money from farming and side jobs they wouldn’t feel the need to use their children as a means of economic assistance and would instead send them to school which would bring them more long term benefits.”
Meseret Bezu, SNNPR Education Bureau Development Plan Director disagrees with this, she says the night shift is not a major solution to reducing school dropout rates.
“We are working on school feeding to assist parents in providing food for their children. We are opening schools near their home which are equipped with libraries and laboratories so as a government we need encourage students to attend school every day to give them a better education. Night school is not our top priority agenda,” she said.

The completed design and the full cost of the of Adwa Pan Africa University has not been finalized yet despite the fact that PM Hailemariam Desalegn and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni laid the foundation nine months ago.
The Tigray Administration gave 150 hectares of land for the school but some houses in the given area needed to be relocated to begin the construction.
The committee, made a temporary design after getting feedback from religious leaders, historians, foreign and local scholars, politicians and other concerned bodies.
The draft design which was shown at a meeting in the presence of Hailemariam Desalegn on January 15 at Sheraton Addis Hotel included a building for Natural and Social Studies including Pan Africa studies and a wall which has a picture of patriots in the Adwa war, and nine arch shapes which symbolize the nine regions of the country .
Betew Belay who is head of the committee working to build the university, said they will have an international conference in a few months to obtain valuable feedback from local and foreign stakeholders.
“We sincerely thank Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn for his commitment to help us build the university and we are tirelessly working to involve stakeholders in the project and we will try our best to start the construction after we have completed the necessary steps.”
The PM has pledged 200 million birr from the government. He says the university will be effective on a global scale.
“Adwa is the victory of the our past generation the university will belong to the Ethiopian people, we will also have a museum that showing our bravery against foreign aggression and my government will do more to put this idea in to action.’’
Adwa Pan Africa University is the first of its kind in Ethiopia. It is being built to commemorate the Adwa victory.
Construction of the Adwa Pan African University was officially launched in the city of Adwa, Tigrai State in northern Ethiopia on April 23, 2017. The cornerstone laying ceremony was attended by many African leaders including the Nigerian, South African, Malawian, Liberian, and Burundian former presidents. In addition the current Vice President of Botswana, the Puntland administration president and other dignitaries from all over Africa attended the cornerstone laying ceremony
The Battle of Adwa was fought on March 2, 1896/Yekatit 23, 1889 according to the Ethiopian calendar between the Ethiopian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy near the town of Adwa, Ethiopia, in Tigray. This climactic battle of the first Italo-Ethiopian War, was a decisive defeat for Italy and secured Ethiopian sovereignty.

A group of people who bought homes from Access Real Estate, a developer who has been in turmoil for the past decade, are insisting that the government help them obtain their homes as opposed to considering other options.
The petition, signed by 325 home buyers, asked the government to intervene so they could obtain a home at the actual cost they paid years ago to Access Real Estate.
Access, who was able to amass a huge amount of money from over 2,500 home buyers within a limited time frame failed to transfer a single house.
In the past five years the company has experienced more difficulties since the company’s founder, former board head and CEO, Ermias Amelga left the country after he was unable to transfer houses or refund the money to clients. He also sent checks to some of the home buyers which then bounced.
In the meantime the government has gotten involved in the chaotic situation at the request of the home buyers some of whom are out of the country. The government has played a crucial role in getting Ermias to return. He is believed to be a key to a solution while the case is still in limbo.
When Ermias returned from Dubai after the main committee, which is formed by the order of the PM and includes top government officials, intervened, the company and representatives of home buyers, proposed that Access Real Estate construct houses for all home buyers via partnerships with other international companies without any additional funding from clients.
However, the founder disagreed on various issues including settling the balance payment for the former owner of Imperial Hotel, who sold the property to Access and transferred it to Metal and Engineering Corporation (METEC), a military affiliated engineering firm.
According to the information Capital obtained a week ago some home buyers, who recently signed a petition pleaded with PM Hailemariam Desalegn to have the government to establish an independent caretaker/trustee board overseeing construction of their homes.
Bekele Woldemichael, who legally represents 168 home buyers under the contractual agreement with Access/Pacific Link and Demekirstos Zemene, two of the four individuals that signed the cover letter of the petition that was sent to the PM told Capital that they want their homes built without spending an additional penny.
“We know that the audit report stated that the company’s assets are positive which means the company has the capacity to construct the homes,” Demekirstos, who came to Capital office to express the home buyers’ position, said.
Sources close to the issue said that most of the home buyers who paid the entire price of the home prefer that they get a home without any additional cost.
The audit report carried out by the Audit Services Corporation and submitted to the Ministry of Trade on April 7, 2017 indicated that the company had collected 1.3 billion birr. The major share or 1.16 billion birr came from home buyers.
The company states that the amount the home buyers paid five to ten years ago is now not enough to construct the house they agreed to in the contract, which means they need to pay more because the value of the money is not the same now. However, Bekele counters that contractual agreement has to be honored. “We have a right to get the benefit as per the verdict,” Bekele, whose represents a group of home buyers who purchased homes at a site called Pacific Link and obtained a verdict in the courts, told Capital.
The 325 individuals demanded to receive their houses without any more funding.
“The number of home buyers who signed the petition will be increased if we get the others involved,” Demekirstos argued. He also said that the individuals who paid the full amount would take the majority of the money collected from home buyers.
They claim the main committee of home buyers is not representing them and argue that this will help the housing debacle get resolved.
“We disclosed to the government that we don’t agree with the decision of the main committee and it does not represent us,” Demekirstos said.
Two weeks ago the main committee of Access home buyers visited the Ministry of Trade office to discuss why it has taken so long to find a solution to their problem. Since they appeared without an appointment they did not have enough time to express their concerns, but Bekele Bulado (PhD), Minister of Trade, agreed to meet them on Wednesday January 10 at the MoT Hall. The committee and Bekele met that Wednesday. Sources told Capital that in the meeting the minister promised to solve the problem as soon as possible.