ETHIOPIA: TPLF Reconciliation Attempts & more – 17th Oct 2024

Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 17th of October twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

Let’s begin this episode with news from up north, about the feud within the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (or TPLF), the region’s biggest party. Neutral individuals from various organizations announced that they had come together to form a team that would try to reconcile members of the TPLF who were at odds. Individuals form the team said the division within the party is putting the region at risk of destabilization.

However, Gebru Asrat, a founding member of the TPLF who has walked away from the party, among other skeptics, says that this won’t bear fruits. He said that even if the team manages to bring all the members of the TPLF to good terms, it won’t benefit the Tigray people as it will only ensure that the party stays dominant in the region. He instead called for talks that involved the wider community and other political parties to determine how the region should be administered in the long run.

Down south, there was some tragic news, with five civilians murdered on Sunday the 13th and Monday the 14th in the Southern Ethiopia region, in the Kore zone. Officials from the zone accused the Oromo Liberation Army or, as the government calls it, Shenie, of the attack. Representatives from the area called on the government to put an end to these killings. Previously, the Oromo Liberation Army denied accusations that said that it was targeting civilians.

Just three days before these attacks, Shimelis Abdisa, Oromia’s regional president, made a post on his Facebook page, saying he welcomed the calls from the Oromo Liberation Army to resolve the conflict peacefully. This post came after one of the commanders of the army recently said he wanted to put an end to the conflict.

However, even though this commander’s faction agreed to a peace deal, the rest of the army would still clash with the government. Recall that the executive and the group had sat down for peace talks in Tanzania last year, which ended unsuccessfully.

Next up, on Friday the 11th, in its first quarterly report, the Immigration and Citizenship Service announced plans to roll out e-passports by January twenty twenty-five. The Service said that the new e-passport would contain data in a chip implanted in it and that it wouldn’t be exposed to illegal acts such as counterfeiting.

The Service also said that in a few months, the recently issued e-passports for people over twenty-five would be valid for ten years, double the time passports are currently valid for. Despite these announcements and promises of improvement, the Service was put into question, as there is a general belief that it mistreats clients and that its performance is poor.

In business news, the world-renowned alcohol manufacturing company Heineken has reached an agreement with local company Komari, which specializes in producing hard seltzer, to acquire the Arada brand. Local news outlet Capital broke the news, saying that according to its sources, which it explicitly mentioned, the deal will be officially announced in the next few weeks. Even though it is still not known how much Heineken bought the brand for, the deal is sealed. The newspaper additionally revealed that negotiations were almost done in July but got stalled when the government announced the macro-economic reform, which increased the value of foreign currencies against the birr.

The hard-seltzer brand Arada launched just three years ago but quickly became a hit among consumers. The factory is located in the North Shoa zone of the Amhara region and reportedly cost Komari almost thirty million US dollars.

The government’s macro-economic reform program we just mentioned, which decreased the birr’s value against foreign currencies, is having effects across sectors. One sector that has been significantly affected is transportation, with fuel prices reaching an all-time high even with subsidy programs. On Tuesday the 15th, the Addis Ababa Transportation Bureau revealed fare increases on mini-buses and city buses. The price hike ranges from five to fifteen birr, which is around four to fifteen US cents. The bureau warned public transport service providers that it would take measures if they overcharged more than the fares it had determined.

More business news as Brook Taye, the CEO of Ethiopian Investment Holdings, said that Ethio Telecom will begin offering its shares to the public sometime this week at the African Investment Conference held in London last week. He explained that although there were plans to sell the shares via the Ethiopian Securities Exchange, the country’s first and only stock exchange, officials have since had a change of heart because the Initial Public Offering will be costly. This means that the shares will be offered on Telebirr, Ethio Telecom’s superapp. The company will offer ten percent of its shares to the public. The Securities Exchange, on the other hand, is set to launch operations next month.

And sure enough, at an event held in Addis on Wednesday the 16th, the company’s shares were officially made available to the public. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and other top government officials were present at the reveal. In a speech, the PM encouraged the public to quickly buy shares of this profitable company. According to a recent appraisal, Ethio Telecom is worth around three hundred billion birr or two and a half billion US dollars. Currently, the shares up for grabs are worth around thirty billion birr, which is two hundred and fifty million US dollars. The company’s CEO explained that an individual can only buy shares worth up to a million birr, which is eight thousand US dollars. The share sale will be open until the 3rd of January twenty twenty-five.

Speaking of stock exchanges, the Capital Market Authority, which regulates the capital markets, made public the draft directives that will mandate the digital registration of shares. The Authority said electronic registration will ensure secure and fast services. The Authority has also mandated an information database that will allow remote dealings.

Another legislation that is being debated is the Animal Health Proclamation, which executive members of the government presented to the House of People’s Representatives on Tuesday the 15th. The proclamation requires forming an animal health board and includes provisions on how veterinarians will be licensed. It also indicates that studies from the World Animal Health Organization determined that Ethiopia was giving sub-standard health care to animals and pointed out how this can be improved. Further deliberation on the legislation was assigned to the House’s Agricultural Affairs standing committee.

On Monday the 14th, real estate company Ovid announced in a joint press release with ride-sharing platform Ride and streaming platform Sewasew that it had reached an agreement to build over five thousand affordable residential units for Ride drivers and artists on the Sewasew platform. This deal is part of Ovid’s plans to build seventy thousand houses all over the capital, Addis. The company’s CEO said most of these houses will be built in Gelan, in the peripheries of the capital.

It was a busy week in federal courts as judges returned from their two-month recess. One of the first cases they dealt with was about human trafficking, which saw sixteen individuals guilty, and the Federal First Instance Court imposed sentences ranging from three to twenty-five years. One of the accused individuals was handed a fine of four hundred thousand birr, which is over three thousand US dollars, and was let go.

And finally, the Ethiopian national football team lost both of its matches in this international break to the Guinean national team. This means that the team sits at the bottom of its group with just one point in the qualifiers for the twenty twenty-five African Cup of Nations tournament.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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