Sea Outlet & more – 19th Oct 2023

Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 19th of October twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was in the news several times this week.

First he called for a meeting with people’s representatives to talk about prospects for a sea outlet for the country (which is landlocked). The government filmed the meeting and later a state-backed media channel transmitted it. The country needs a sea outlet because Ethiopia has a fast-growing population that's expected to reach 150 million in the next few decades. If the country can't provide for its citizens through trade (which will be significantly boosted through a sea outlet), then the citizens will remain poor and disconnected.

So how can Ethiopia get sea access? The PM said that the country could offer shares of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Ethio Telecom, Ethiopian Airlines, and other large entities to neighbors Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somaliland in exchange for a sea outlet.

The PM was in the news again as he went to China on Monday the 16th for an official work trip, his first trip to the country in the past four years. He met with both China’s Prime Minister Li Qiang and President Xi Jinping on two separate occasions. Politicians talked about their bilateral relations and strengthening their economic ties. PM Abiy brought up China’s support in numerous sectors and called for more investment in agriculture, manufacturing, Information Communication Technology, mining, and tourism.

Back in Ethiopia...

The Tigray region observed a period of mourning from Saturday the 14th to Monday the 16th. Although transportation services were running as usual, banks and other important service providers were closed. On Saturday the 14th, Getachew Reda, the region's interim administration president, held a presser. Journalists asked him about how many lives the war claimed, and he said that the administration would eventually make the number of casualties public, adding that revealing the number now serves no purpose. He also said that those who died made a massive sacrifice but that this wasn't regrettable as it was made for Tigray’s survival. The Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, His Holiness Father Mathias, the Minister of Defense Abraham Belay, and the director-general of the World Health Organization. Tedros Adhanom, who's originally from Tigray, expressed their condolences.

Moving on, according to research the Agricultural Transformation Institute carried out, forty percent of the country’s total land is acidic. The institute’s deputy director said that the land’s acidity will have a serious adverse impact on produce, so making the land fertile should be a priority. He added that climate change, among other factors, was responsible for the acidity. He also said that the institute is working with other entities to solve this issue within the next five years. To solve the acidity problem, the institute has already proposed to the Ministry of Agriculture the construction of an agricultural database to adjust agriculture to the prevailing climate.

From one deputy director to another - Tamiru Gembeta, former deputy director of the Immigration and Citizenship Service, was arrested on Monday the 16th on charges of corruption. News outlets said that law enforcement officers searched the deputy director’s house this week. More than forty employees of the service were detained. News reports came out saying that the arrests were made after a thorough investigation the National Intelligence and Security Service, the Federal Police, and the Immigration and Citizenship Service itself carried out.

Well, what did these people allegedly do? They are accused of giving passports to individuals under criminal persecution, people with fake IDs, among others. Reportedly, detainees allegedly committed these crimes across the country through a ‘web’ of corruption. Not only did these suspects collude with criminals, but they also made the lives of other clients harder. In the end, their clients wasted both their time and resources.

The immigration and citizenship service is not the only government entity that is known for its lackluster performance. For instance, the Ministry of Education. Many are still in shock after the national university entrance exam results were revealed last week, with thousands of students failing the test. The Minister of Education Berhanu Nega sat before the House of People’s Representatives Human Resource Development, Jobs, and Tech Affairs standing committee to talk about the execution of the first quarter of this academic year. The Minister said that the exam administration reforms indicated the true competence and incompetence of candidates and the deep-seated problems in the education system that various stakeholders are responsible for. This explanation did not sit well with the committee's chairman who said that only the Ministry and regional education bureaus were responsible for the issues that the results of the exam reflected. He called for an independent panel of experts to conduct research to find out the reason why so many students failed and what the solution to the problem was.

Next up, The Federal Police announced on Wednesday the 18th that it will roll out a software that would help reduce illegal weapon transactions. The head of the police's weapons administration directorate said that the system is in a trial phase and that the police are working with other stakeholders on additional resources and data.

In business news, on Saturday the 14th, Kaki Motors Co., an automotive importing company that mainly imports Isuzu products, inaugurated a four hundred and fifty million birr or eight million dollar assembly plant. Once it reaches maximum capacity, the plant will roll out two thousand five hundred trucks per year, creating jobs for almost eight hundred people. The company’s managing director added that there are plans to expand the plant and five million dollars have already been set aside with the expansion in mind.

There are numerous construction projects underway all around Addis. The Ethiopian Electric Utility announced that it is going to build its headquarters which will be the tallest building in the country and in East Africa, even surpassing the new Commercial Bank of Ethiopia headquarters, which is two hundred and ten meters (or almost 700 feet) tall. The project is set to cost almost half a billion dollars. The project leader said that they will finish the designing phase next year, and then the company will pick the main contractor. The Ethiopian Electric Utility specifies that the project will be done and dusted in four years.

The Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration announced on Tuesday the 17th that gas prices will stay the same for the whole month of Tikemt (which runs from Thursday the 12th of October to Friday the 10th of November). Recall that the Ministry pushed up prices for two months straight. Regular gas currently goes for seventy-seven birr and sixty-five cents or a dollar and thirty-nine cents a liter.

And to close this edition, here’s some celebrity news…

Theodros Kassahun, more commonly known as Teddy Afro, is a well-renowned artist. About four years ago, a promoter called Nile Promotion agreed to pay the artist ten million birr, or almost a hundred and eighty thousand dollars for a concert at Meskel Square. However, once the show was over the promoter told Teddy that he was only entitled to two million birr or almost thirty-six thousand dollars, so Teddy sued them a year later. The Federal High Court Civil Bench entertained the case for years and reached a decision on Tuesday the 17th. The Court decided that Teddy was entitled to the payment explaining that the two had a valid contract, so Nile Promotions had to pay the 180,000 dollars.

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

Before we leave, we have a quick question for those following us for a while. How are we doing on bias? Ax grinding? We try to be independent and stick to the facts and context. How are we doing? Do we seem even a teensy bit biased? We are happy to see the Rorshok Ethiopia community is growing and want to be the best at what we do! Tell us your thoughts and opinions at ethiopia@rorshok.com You can also contact us on Twitter or Instagram @rorshokethiopia or Mastodon @ethiopia@rorshok.social

Ciao!