Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 30th of January twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

In an update to a story from our previous show, opposition parties are not very excited about the plans to amend Ethiopia’s election rules. They don’t want to change how members of the House of Federation (the upper house of Parliament) are voted in. Currently, regional council members vote for candidates seeking seats in the House. If the Board’s proposed amendment passes, the public will directly vote for the House’s members.

The opposition is also not on board with lowering the limit of a thousand and five hundred voters to a thousand in one polling station. They explained that this would require more polling stations and parties won’t be able to deploy their observers to them, raising questions about the credibility of future elections.

Meanwhile, it was a busy week for the House of Peoples’ Representatives, the lower house of the Parliament, as members convened on Thursday the 23rd to grill the Ministry of Urban and Infrastructure Development. They focused on the Corridor Development Project, an initiative of the Prime Minister’s Office. The Project has been going on for almost a year now. It focuses on driving down road congestion and beautifying sidewalks. Members noted the benefits of the Project, but relayed complaints from the people on unlawful expropriation, high costs and delays.

The Minister responded to these complaints by highlighting the positives, saying that the negatives have been overblown and politicized. She did admit that the selection of areas to be developed with this project has been arbitrary and that it has expanded to areas of the country where there were no original plans to implement the project.

Aside from sidewalks, designated bike lanes have also been paved. To make good use of this development, the Addis Ababa Transportation Bureau has revealed that plans are well underway to implement a bike share program, exclusively on bike lanes paved as part of the Corridor Project. Officials from the Bureau explained that this program is only available on corridor lanes because those roads have camera surveillance, allowing the monitoring of rented bikes. The Bureau will not be going this alone; it said it needs to partner up with at least two private operators to implement the program. Among other requirements, private operators interested in this venture must have a minimum number of bikes equipped with GPS.

On Thursday the 30th, there was another meeting for members of the House. In this seventeenth regular assembly of the year, the House is set to approve the draft bill on general education after listening to a report and proposal from the Human Resource Development, Jobs and Tech Affairs standing committee, which further examined the draft. If approved, it will abolish student rankings in all elementary schools, among other new developments in education.

The House also appointed a new commissioner for the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission after reviewing a list of nominees. Five nominees, including a cabinet minister during the Meles, regime were presented but it was Berhanu Adelo, the former director general of the Intellectual Property Office, who got the job.

The House had previously assembled on Monday the 27th because of an urgent meeting to approve a loan deal with the World Bank for a figure as high as seven hundred million US dollars. This amount is meant to help strengthen the country’s financial sector and is set to be used over the next five years. Specifically, the loan will be used to restructure and support the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia.

House members expressed doubts and concern over this development, saying the country’s ability to carry significant amounts in debt is not high, since the GDP is low.

A member from an opposition party noted that the Commercial Bank has constantly said that it is a profitable enterprise, questioning why it needs more financial support. An official from the Ministry of Finance explained that the funds will help the Bank shield itself against the fierce competition that foreign banks will bring as they enter the country’s market.

But it doesn’t seem the borrowing trend will stop anytime soon, not only from the World Bank, but from the International Monetary Fund (or IMF) as well. The Ministry of Finance officially announced that Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, will visit Ethiopia as part of an official two-day work trip. The Ministry added that Georgieva will discuss the country’s economic reform with top government officials aside from a meeting planned with private sector representatives on the economy and opportunities in the Ethiopian market. This will be Georgieva's first-ever visit to Ethiopia as the IMF’s managing director.

Another dignitary visited Ethiopia this week. Mohammed Sadiki, the party representative of the Moroccan National Rally of Independents, arrived on Wednesday the 29th. The next day, he sat down with Adem Farah, the current Prosperity Party’s Vice President, and discussed ways to boost the partnership between the two parties.

During his stay in Ethiopia, Mohammed will attend the Prosperity Party’s second general assembly, where Adem said the Party will consolidate the progress it made over the past few years and renew commitments going forward. He said that his party has managed to grow the economy. Mohammed, on his part, extended an invitation to the Party to visit Morocco as part of a work trip, with a view to strengthening relations.

Who else is in Addis to attend the Party’s general assembly? Wellers Gasamagera, the secretary of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, Rwanda’s ruling party. He arrived on the same day as Mohammed on Wednesday the 29th, with tourism and foreign ministers welcoming him. The Party’s general assembly will be held from Friday the 31st of January to Sunday the 2nd of February. Representatives of parties from member states of the BRICS bloc and some fifteen African countries are expected to attend the assembly.

Back to news on the economy, the government said it has plans to invest in foreign corporations via its sovereign wealth fund, Ethiopian Investment Holdings, which is the parent entity of major state-owned enterprises such as the Commercial Bank, Ethiopian Airlines, and Ethio Telecom. The fund’s CEO said the country will resume investing in multinational corporations after a century-long absence. The last time the country invested in a global stock market was when Emperor Menelik II invested in New York stocks in the late 19th century.

This time around, the CEO said the country will invest in foreign companies through the Euronext Paris exchange. The government has been moving to diversify its investment and this will be the latest development in its efforts

From finance to education, the Ministry of Education reminded universities and regional education bureaus not to issue certificates to teachers who did not sit for exit exams. Exit exams are exams administered to students of an educational program to ensure that they are competent in their fields. It is given right before graduation and certification (around the end of the program).

The Ministry gave the order in a memo after discovering that teachers enrolled in degree and diploma programs have received certification without sitting for exams. On top of this, the Ministry said that, in certain regions, teachers who didn’t take standardized tests (which should be taken after they completed their studies and right before they graduate) are even getting promotions.

This was just a warning but you know who took administrative measures? The Addis Ababa Environmental Protection Authority. It said it took various measures against a thousand and eight hundred manufacturers and service providers that have been polluting the environment. In its six-month report, the Authority said that the measures ranged from written final warnings to sealing outlets.

Sixteen manufacturers and fifty-nine service providers were closed, with the rest on thin ice. All kinds of businesses, from garages to nightclubs, have been closed as part of the Authority’s sweep over the past six months. It added that it also fined companies a total of almost a million birr, which is eight thousand US dollars.

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

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Ciao!