ETHIOPIA: Visas & more – 2nd May 2024

Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 2nd of May twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

The European Union has announced that it will temporarily restrict visa-issuing laws for Ethiopians. The Union is complaining that EU countries are deporting illegal Ethiopians, but Ethiopia isn't facilitating their way back home. So now Ethiopians will have to go through a more stringent visa application process as they will have to submit documents they might not have been required to before. Multiple entry visas will no longer be issued, and diplomatic and service passport-holding Ethiopians can’t waive visa fees. The EU Council also decided to increase visa processing periods from fifteen to forty-five days.

Ethiopia was not happy with this development. The country’s embassy in Brussels was pissed because they said they were indeed doing their best to cooperate with the EU to return Ethiopians illegally staying in the EU to their homeland in a dignified, orderly and safe way. The government added that the EU’s decision would obstruct the cooperation efforts, and urged the Union to reconsider its decision.

In other news, Tadesse Werede, the vice president of the interim administration of Tigray, said to a local media outlet that his administration had reached an agreement with the federal government as well as the national defense forces on a proposed schedule to resolve matters in the Southern and Western zones of the Tigray region. Based on this timeline, disarmament, disbanding and administrative issues in Southern Tigray are set to be resolved in the first week of June, while the impasse in Western Tigray will be resolved by the first week of July. Tadesse added that the African Union’s Monitoring, Verification, and Compliance Mission will oversee the implementation of the agreement. This development bears good news for internally displaced civilians as part of the plan is to reinstate them to their former homes.

Moving on, the Ethiopian Investment Holdings announced on Tuesday the 30th that shares of six state-owned enterprises will be up for sale in the Ethiopian Securities Exchange, the country’s very first stock market, which is yet to be operational. The government had previously announced that it would sell ten percent of the shares of Ethio Telecom. And according to the Holdings’ announcement, five more enterprises have joined Ethio Telecom, including the Ethiopian Sea Transport and Logistics Service Enterprise, the Ethiopian Insurance Corporation, and the Berhanena Selam Publishing Enterprise. Even though the public knows that 10% of Ethio Telecom’s shares will be up for sale, society doesn’t know how many shares of the rest of the enterprises will be available. The Holdings’ head was asked if shares in the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia would be made available for sale, and he said not any time soon.

Up next, severe gas shortages are hitting eighteen Cities in the Oromia region. The shortages were so severe that the region’s trade bureau had to notify the Petroleum and Energy Authority and the Petrol Suppliers Enterprise on Monday the 29th. The Bureau said in the letter that the shortage affected transportation and law enforcement. What’s more concerning is that this gas scarcity occurred right when large development projects that require a lot of energy are nearing their finishing stages. Even though the exact reasons for the shortage haven’t been made public, an official from the Petrol and Energy Authority said that the shortage has nothing to do with the amount of gas allocated to each city. On Tuesday the 30th of April, the region’s trade bureau ordered two hundred and fifty trucks to bring more petrol to the region.

Even though Ethiopia is very dependent on gas imports, soil fertilizer is another popular import. In September last year, the Ministry of Agriculture revealed plans to import over twenty million quintals of fertilizer. And the plan seems to be going through as the Ethiopian Agricultural Businesses Corporation said that more than half of the planned imports arrived at the Port of Djibouti recently. Most of the imports were sent to the rest of the country for distribution. However, various media outlets say that the fertilizers aren’t reaching their destinations on time, especially in the Amhara region, due to conflicts. Even when the fertilizer reaches smallholder farmers, problems don’t end there since farmers have to buy fertilizers at a price that has increased significantly.

On another note, The Ministry of Irrigation and Lowlands presented its nine-month executive report to the House of People’s Representatives on Tuesday the 30th. The House was not happy with the Ministry because it had used more than five billion birr or almost nine million dollars from its budget of almost eight billion birr or a hundred and forty million dollars, but it didn’t complete a single project. The Minister said the shockingly low execution rates and quality issues had to do with conflicts in the region. She also cited other reasons such as inflation, compensation and limited capacity. The water, irrigation, lowlands and environmental development affairs standing committee said the Ministry’s budget usage suggests corruption.

Adanech Abebe, Addis’ Mayor, also had to sit before regulators and legislators, at the Addis Ababa City Council, where they asked her about the highly accelerated process of demolishing houses and business stores for the sake of the corridor development project, which she says it will make the city more beautiful and improve the standard of living. She said that the work is being done quickly because the city government has been planning this for two years. Abebe added that over five thousand properties have been demolished for this project. She said that the city government allocated three billion birr or over fifty million dollars to compensate the residents that had their houses demolished and that one and a half billion birr or a little over twenty-five million dollars had already been paid. She also said the project has created thousands of permanent and temporary jobs.

However, Addis residents are annoyed by this development, which completely destroyed the treasured neighborhood of Piassa.

In news away from the capital, the Amhara region’s culture and tourism bureau head, who is also a member of opposition party the National Movement of Amhara, said that he resigned for personal reasons. He also said that his replacement had been picked from his party. There was speculation over the exact reason for his resignation, but he laid the rumors to rest after his interview with the BBC’s Amharic service.

As we near the end of the academic year, education regulatory institutions are announcing schedules for various exams. On Monday the 29th, the Educational Assessment and Exam Service said that twelfth graders should expect to sit for the national university entrance exam starting from the 10th of July. Recall that in order to combat cheating in these exams, the government decided to administer them in federal universities as opposed to local schools because invigilators at local schools allow examinees to cheat. But the invigilators at universities don't since they're monitored more.

However, this year, some students may not be required to go to these universities for the exam because the Ministry of Education has plans to administer the exam online in a few cities as a pilot project

Results in the past two years have been nothing short of dismaying as only a little over three percent of the students managed to pass.

The Ministry of Education also announced the schedule for university exit exams. They will be administered in late June.

And to close this edition, most followers of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church have been fasting for almost two months for lent. The fast will come to an end this Sunday, the 5th, when the Church celebrates Easter. On Friday the 3rd, the Church will also remember the crucifixion of Jesus on the holiday of Good Friday. We wish you a happy Ethiopian Easter.

And that’s it for this week! Thanks your joining us!

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