ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – The Federal Government sacked Abe Sano, president of the state-owned Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) last Friday, November 7, 2008.
The government ordered the Public Financial Enterprises Supervisory Agency (PFEA) headed by Eyob Tesfaye (PhD), to replace Abe with his Vice President, Bekalu Zeleke, who had been working under Abe for the last two and half years.
Many were surprised when the then 34-year old Abe Sano was appointed as the youngest top executive in CBE’s 64-year history in January 2006; similarly, his dismissal was equally unexpected among employees of the bank.
“It is the government’s decision,” a senior government official told Fortune.
Abe was appointed to the post following the suicide of his predecessor, Gezahegn Yilma.
Despite a performance that led to improvement within the bank, Abe could not escape the decision by the Revolutionary Democrats to relieve him of his post for reasons yet unknown.
It is under his leadership that the bank’s annual gross profit soared to a record 716 million Br in March 2008 for the first time in CBE’s history. The volume of Non Performing Loans (NPLs) indicated a marked decline to an all time low of 13-15pc from over 50pc four years ago. Abe’s management team achieved these results within one and half years of his appointment.
Further excelling in their achievement, his management managed to lower the NPLs of the bank to the internationally required level of 10pc by the third quarter of the 2007/08 fiscal year. In the second quarter of 2007/08, the bank’s gross profit shot up by 28pc to 1.3 billion Br.
The staggering ratio of 50pc NPLs that the bank registered a few years ago when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pressured its management to set a target to reduce it to 24pc within two years, significantly declined under Abe. These achievements, however, did not occur within a short period.
For example, despite aggressive campaigns in attempts to recover loans in the years following IMF’s squeeze, CBE did not go any lower than 29.2pc in 2004/05 fiscal year in terms of NPLs.
CBE registered the current healthy level NPLs ratio, even as its lending increased to 15 billion Br within the third quarter of 2007/08, up by 56pc in the same period the preceding year.
This figure represents an amount almost equal to that of loans advanced by all the commercial banks in the country in 2006/07.
Abe told Fortune that he had not yet received any letter officially notifying him of his removal from office, his tone clearly indicating the disappointment that he did not verbally utter.
“He performed remarkably,” a senior government official said. “However, he failed to transform all the branches into the IT age.”
CBE, a 64-year old East African banking giant, has still not installed an electronic banking system, when the younger private Dashen Bank, which has a total capital equivalent to only 10pc of CBE’s, has taken a lead in the industry by harnessing this advanced banking system.
Nevertheless, CBE has been in the process of evaluating and negotiating with international IT firms to install the system that gives depositors 24-hour access to the money in their local or overseas accounts through Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).
The new president, Bekalu, has ousted Abe as the youngest executive appointed to the top most post in CBE as he is only 31 years old.
Bekalu can also be equally credited for the bank’s current performance as he was vice president of the Finance and Accounting Department of the Bank, before becoming Abe’s second in command.
Like Abe, by late Friday the new CBE boss had not yet been officially informed about his promotion to the bank’s highest position.
The oldest commercial bank in Ethiopia, CBE swung into business in 1942 with a 65 million Br capital. That capital has steadily risen to 4.2 billion Br, giving the bank the capacity to lend as much as one billion Birr to a single borrower.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – The Addis Abeba City Administration has started claiming back land and government properties illegally obtained by officials of the former provisional Administration of the city, some of whom have been retained by the current Kuma-led administration.
Those officials still within the city administration will face removal from their current positions as part of the measures to be taken against them.
After running the city for three years, the administration under the helm of the former Mayor Arkebe Oqubay, now State minister of Works and Urban Development(MoWUD) administration, was supposed to hand over power to the then Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), which had won 137 of the 138 seats in the City Council.
But CUD failed to take over administration of the city as it could not come to terms with EPRDF. As a result, the Federal Government assigned the reins to the Caretaker Administration of Berhane Deresa, which administered the city for two years.
A report by the Federal Ethics andAnti-Corruption Commission disclosed that land grabbing was rampant in the few months before Arkebe handed over the administration to the Caretaker Administration.
The administration that came to power in May 2008 seems determined not to let the illegal possession of government properties go unchallenged. The Kuma-led administration has been developing special mechanisms of getting the land back.
Revelations of the illegal possessions began last Ethiopian summer when EPRDF sent about 2,000 of its members, who are officials at different levels of the city, to Alagie Agricultural Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) College near Zeway town, 163Km from Addis Abeba for training.
Top officials from both the Federal and City Government and senior party leaders like Bereket Simon, Arkebe Oqubay, Kuma Demeksa, Mekuria Haile took part in the training of the officials.
Several of the trainees were district and kebele executives during Arkebe’s time who have also been candidates for Kuma’s administration.
The officials, who took the training on the party’s strategic policies in two groups of 1,000 for a month each, had also undergone EPRDF’s infamous self evaluation in groups of their respective districts.
According to a source who attended the training, the trainees just began to voluntarily confess each of all the illegal acts they had committed, including the unlawful acquisition of public houses, land and condominium houses.
Those who were in charge of facilitating the confessions cautiously listened to the details and later submitted them to the party’s Addis Abeba office, the source told Fortune. The office discussed the case and decided to take measures against those who had confessed to the illegal acts.
Mekuria Haile, city general manager, confirmed to Fortune that action has been taken against the culprits.
“Further measures will follow for those who were involved in land grabbing,” he said.
The administration has already started taking measure in districts such as Lideta, Bole and Nefas-Silk-Lafto.
Biniam Haregu, speaker of the Lideta District Council and Tsegaw Yimer, head of Bole District Youth and Sports Office, have subsequently been removed from their posts.
According to the source, the administration has already confirmed that there are many others who got condominium houses while living in government houses and some who illegally took plots of land to construct houses on them.
Well-heeled shoppers in New York, Paris, Tokyo and other global fashion centers are beginning to see a new name, Taytu, beside familiar Guccis and Chanels among the ladies’ handbags in exclusive shops.
Ethiopia, home to the largest livestock population in Africa, produces and exports millions of hides annually, mainly in the form of semiprocessed leather. Eyeing higher profits, Ethiopia is moving to develop its own trademarked leather products. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is helping Ethiopia develop its leather processing and branding sector; the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and other development groups are also assisting.
“The Ethiopian government supports an export sector of high-value, finished leather products, not semiprocessed leather,” said Taytu Trade and Industry Managing Director Salpi Nalbandian.
Taytu markets the products of 12 Ethiopian manufacturers of leather goods. The consortium was formed in 2006, when the Ethiopian government identified the leather industry as a potentially lucrative sector.
For example, Cabretta leather, prized for golf gloves, because of its strength and elasticity, brings the Ethiopian herder $2 for the skin needed for one glove, $5 to the exporter of the leather, and $25 to the retailer of a glove manufactured outside of Ethiopia.
Another Ethiopian leather product, the Bati goat skin, is reputed to produce the softest, finest suede. Ethiopian herders make about $10 for the skin need to make one suede coat. The leather exporter collects about $40-$50 after tanning. The coat, which is manufactured outside Ethiopia, will bring at least $400 to the retailer, according to Light Years IP, a group that helps developing countries spur growth through the use of intellectual property rights.
Taytu handbags sold by the upscale Barneys New York fetch prices around $1,500; one particular Taytu handbag design is priced at $22,000, according to the company’s Web site. Taytu made contact with Barneys and other high-end foreign retailers by participating in trade shows in New York, Paris and Los Angeles. Theory, another high-end retailer of clothing and accessories, is considering marketing Taytu bags, according to Nalbandian.
Entering the international market is difficult, and Nalbandian credits USAID and UNIDO for helping to make that happen.
“It involves a long chain of work, getting the raw materials, meeting delivery deadlines, correspondence, understanding the work and business conditions abroad. We must win the confidence and trust of foreign buyers,” she said. She said UNIDO provided expertise in design and manufacturing and USAID, in marketing. “They have guided Ethiopia into the high-end market niche,” she said. “They have advised that Ethiopia should not compete with China and India in producing for the mass market.”
Taytu’s sales revenues have risen from $25,000 in 2006, when the consortium was formed, to $85,000 in the last fiscal year. Five months into the current fiscal year, which runs from July to June, Taytu has received about $70,000 in foreign orders. Sales from its shop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, also are rising sharply as a result of Taytu’s entry into foreign markets.
“When local newspapers wrote about Taytu’s success in New York and other cities, Ethiopian consumers became excited about the Taytu name,” said Teshome Kebede Redie, a USAID contractor working in the Ethiopian leather sector.
Nalbandian said as Taytu profits rise, it will wean itself from USAID financial support. USAID pays the Taytu shop rent in Addis Ababa and the salaries of the shop staff. The agency also bought the computers and furniture in the Taytu shop.
In another attempt to extract potential leather profits, one Ethiopian leather company, Jonzo PLC, plans to enter the shoe business, which absorbs 60 percent of the world’s leather output. Now, Jonzo specializes in leather garments and handbags, some of which are marketed by Taytu.
“Footwear is a big opportunity for Ethiopia,” said Jonzo General Manager Solomon Yesuf. He said he expects Jonzo to start shipping footwear to the St. Louis-based Brown Shoe Company in 2009.
USAID’s Redie said that many shoe companies in the United States, Germany and Italy are looking away from China to shoe suppliers in other regions because of rising prices that Chinese manufacturers are charging.
Jonzo is building a shoe factory on the outskirts of Addis Ababa and expects to have the capacity to make 55,000 pairs a day by the end of 2009. Its goal is to export half the production. The Ethiopian government facilitates the growth of the shoe industry by providing customs facilities, bonded warehouses and concessionary rates for land rental at the factory site.
Getting the financing for expansion from Ethiopian banks has presented a challenge for Jonzo. But USAID has played a helpful role by offering to guarantee 50 percent of the loans as an enticement for an Ethiopian bank to put up the other 50 percent.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Japan today donated 9,600 metric tons of wheat worth over 47 million birr to the Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise.
Speaking at the handing over ceremony, Japanese Ambassador to Ethiopia, Kinichi komano, said the donation has a significant contribution towards stabilizing the market.
Ethiopia and Japan have longstanding and good relations and Japan has been providing assistance in various sectors so as to further enhance the economic growth being registered in the country, Komano said.
Komano added that his country would consolidate its support to the development works to be carried out in the country.
Ethiopian Grain Trade Enterprise (EGTE) General Manager, Berhane Haile, on his part said that the donation made by the government of Japan has a significant contribution to stabilize the market.
(ENA) – Bole Sub City Police department in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, arrested one of the suspected assailants who attacked owner and Editor-in-Chief of The Reporter newspapers, Ato Amare Aregawi.
BEIRUT – At the Ethiopian Consulate in Beirut, Lebanon, a poster declares “Ethiopia: 13 weeks of sunshine” as two officials sit at their desks. The three chairs in the waiting room are usually occupied these days: In just one recent week, the mission heard of one Ethiopian domestic worker who died a suspicious death and another who is in hospital with both legs broken, possibly paralyzed, and can only communicate by blinking her eyes.
The previous week, a woman walked in shaking. When the social officer asked her what was wrong, she replied that her “Madame” – her employer – threatened her with a knife.
It has long been the case that women from impoverished countries like Ethiopia come to Lebanon to work, that many encounter abuse and even violence, and that most find they have nowhere to turn.
Elinore Molla and Victoria Andarge, two Ethiopian women who are involved with the Full Gospel Church in Beirut, have turned an apartment they are renting into a makeshift sanctuary for women who flee their employers after facing some sort of abuse.
“The consulate doesn’t have a resting room. Women sleep under the cars [outside the consulate], so many guys come and harass them. They are only 20 years old with a future and destiny. I take the decision in my life to suffer for them,” said Molla, 27, who is originally from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.
Molla first found out about the women sleeping underneath the cars about a year ago.
“When I was walking I saw the girls,” she recalls. “I found four girls … I was shocked. They said, ‘help us.'”
She took them into her home, which today houses about two dozen women at any given time. “I’m Christian, I’m a believer,” she told The Daily Star. “Everyday I see my people and my nation, with no one to take responsibility. The idea comes from God – helping protect someone who was abused. I ask the girl when I take her to my home: ‘What’s the problem with your sponsor?’ And she says, ‘so many things.'”
The head of the social affairs office at the Ethiopian Consulate, who preferred not to be identified by name, confirmed that women continue to sleep under cars near the mission until this day.
There are several problems with the situation of domestic migrant workers in Lebanon, she explained: “It is not only Ethiopian workers facing problems, but because women from other countries stopped signing contracts, the number of Ethiopians increased.”
There is currently no reliable data, but the consulate estimates the number of Ethiopian workers in Lebanon to be between 40,000 and 50,000, a substantial increase since the number of women coming from Sri Lanka and the Philippines dropped off following the 2006 war with Israel – and attendant stories of abuse and neglect. The Ethiopian government officially barred its own women from coming to Lebanon earlier this year, but many are now traveling here through third countries.
The head of the consular section, who also did not want to be named, said that problems frequently begin from the day of arrival. Many sponsors do not adhere to the terms of the contracts, he explained, such as duration, remuneration, and hours of work expected.
What is even more problematic, he added, is when agencies do not take responsibility when a woman files a complaint, paving the way for a volatile relationship between the workers and their employers.
“We are facing a lot of problems,” he said. “One problem is by the housemaids, second by the sponsors. Since we are foreigners to this country we have a different culture, so from the beginning it is difficult for her to get accustomed.
“But I want to turn to the sponsors’ problem,” he added. “There are a lot of problems from sponsors, they don’t pay salaries on time, they treat them aggressively, they don’t get enough food, and they don’t provide shelter.”
According to the consulate, some 70 percent of employers who employ Ethiopians don’t pay their employees on a monthly basis.
“Sometimes they close the balcony and make them sleep on the floor,” added the head of the social affairs office, “and they beat her to make her understand. That’s why she becomes aggressive toward agencies, the consulate and herself.”
Most troubling of all, the mission says it has been sending a record number of corpses back to Ethiopia.
The consulate estimates that 150 women have died in a little more than a year, and there is no accountability.
In one recent case, Mekdes Tesfaye Tefera’s corpse was found with a noose around her neck. But the consulate has doubts that this was a self-inflicted death and has filed a police report.
“They always say, ‘she killed herself,'” the social affairs officer said.
In the case of Zebiba Kedr, who is currently hospitalized, the consulate is working on having charges laid against the woman for whom she was working. The employers have stated that Kedr fell from the 12th floor of their building, but the head of the consular section said that when he went to see her in the hospital and asked her “Madame” had pushed her, she indicated ‘yes’ by blinking her eyes.
Stories like these make the unofficial shelter run by Molla and Andarge even more essential. Andarge said the agencies were the main problem, accusing them of “playing a game” with people’s lives. The government needs to get involved, she added, and make sure the agencies take responsibility for the women and how they are treated.
The consulate representatives said they had an agreement with all the agencies that said the latter were to be responsible for the women they bring to Lebanon, and that this is why mission does not have a shelter.
The nongovernmental organization Caritas offers a safehouse for workers who are flee their employers’ homes, but Molla said that these spaces are usually reserved for those who are very sick or have psychological problems.
Molla is one of the lucky ones. She came to Lebanon when she was 17 years old and says she has always been well treated by her employer.
“She is like my mom, she is Lebanese, and she supports me. I love her,” Molla told The Daily Star.
But since she regards her own experience as the exception rather than the rule, she discourages other Ethiopian women from traveling to Lebanon for work – a process which she described as getting easier by the day.
“The Lebanese name is collapsing everywhere,” she said, explaining that in Addis Ababa, Lebanon’s reputation is causing fewer and fewer would-be migrant workers to sign up.
To compensate, she added, the recruiters have started concentrating on women from remote villages.
Molla said she tells women in Ethiopia “what is going on” in Lebanon, “and that it’s better to stay in your country, because you still have hopes there. Here there are no hopes.”
Nonetheless, a young woman now staying at the makeshift safehouse said she would like to stay here and support her family back home – if her employers here were to treat her well.
Andarge believes there is hope to change the situation and has already noticed changes in public opinion and awareness. New York-based Human Rights Watch recently conducted a hard-hitting campaign on the plight of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, and last month the American University of Beirut hosted a conference and roundtable discussion on the issue. Some of the students were appalled at what they heard, she said, and their reaction was a pleasant “surprise.”
“It will be changed,” Andarge said with tears in her eyes. “We just need strong people.”
