Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 6th of June twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

On Thursday the 30th of May, The House of People’s Representatives held its twenty-ninth annual regular session. During the session, the House decided to refer a new law on the Immigration and Citizenship Service back to the Foreign Affairs and Peace Affairs Standing Committee for additional deliberations.

The thing is, the members of the House were not happy with what they heard from the public about the Service and the Immigration and Citizenship Service Director General had to hear what the members had to say. They said that the Service is so corrupt that it is causing citizens to lament. They also said citizens are not being treated with respect and it almost seems like the Service’s employees are interrogating individuals.

The new law will allow the Service to control human trafficking further. It will also allow the Service to delegate its functions to certain federal and regional offices if needed.

The House was in the news again as it held its thirtieth regular session on Tuesday the 4th and approved another bill that it received from the Council of Ministers last week. The bill concerned rules on the country’s electoral law, which says that the National Electoral Board must revoke the license of a political party that has engaged in violence, corruption, and fraud. This rule meant that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front would not be re-registered because it fought in a two-year civil war with the government.

The new bill allows parties that resorted to violence to re-register if they have ended violence and if the government determined that the party would operate by the constitution and the democratic system.

That same day, the Ministry of Transport and Logistics presented its nine-month report to the House. The Minister said that the government has collected over a billion birr or almost twenty million US dollars in fines from monitoring almost ten million vehicles. Even though this was welcome news to members, they were sad to hear that traffic accidents haven’t decreased. The Minister also talked about fuel subsidies, saying that the government has spent over eighty-six billion birr or one and a half billion US dollars to import fuel. The Minister also mentioned fraud. Members of the House said that government employees who have taken more than the allocated amount of subsidies had to return what they took and are being held accountable.

The Ministry of Transport was in the news again as it revealed that the World Bank has shown interest in supporting the country's effort to amp up the use of electric vehicles (or EVs). This news came after the State Minister of Transport and Logistics had a discussion with the World Bank's Transport and Energy Group in which the State Minister said the government had been committed to encouraging the use of EVs; it has so far introduced policies, legislation, and incentives to increase EV use while at the same time discouraging the import of internal combustion engine vehicles.

EVs aren’t the only ones getting a boost. The construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is about to be finished soon but it still requires funds so the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia came up with an app for the diaspora community to donate to the construction. During the app’s unveiling event, Abe Sano, the Bank’s president, said that the Bank provided over ninety-five percent of the loans from the total amount of funds expended to build the Dam, which is more than a hundred and thirty billion birr or over two billion US dollars. He added that even though the project hasn’t started paying back the loan, the Bank will continue to provide additional loans.

Speaking of about loans, The Development Bank of Ethiopia says it's going to remit almost five billion birr or ninety million US dollars worth of non-performing loans. These were given out to borrowers in the agricultural sector. The Bank has been struggling with these non-performing loans this year as they comprise almost eight percent of all loans since the start of this budget year. Most of the non-performing loans were taken out for projects in the western part of the country. The Bank's president said that, even though the number of non-performing loans is significant, progress has been made in the past few years. He recalled that five years ago, the Bank's non-performing loans were as high as fifty-seven percent and that the Bank managed to bring this number down after an organizational reform.

In other news, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is on a work trip in South Korea. He arrived in the country on Sunday the 2nd to attend the first-ever Korea-Africa Leaders Summit. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol received PM Abiy in his office to talk about bilateral relations on the sidelines of the Summit. PM Abiy’s Office said that during the meeting, agreements were signed, the most important being a financing framework agreement worth fifty-seven billion birr or a billion US dollars that will be used to finance various projects, including infrastructure, tech, and trade. The countries also signed another deal to collaborate in combating corruption.

Prime Minister Abiy also dropped by Singapore and received a warm welcome from PM Lawrence Wong, who just assumed power a few weeks ago. PM Abiy said there's a lot of room to grow cooperation between the two countries, especially in civil service, manufacturing, tech and tourism. He and the First Lady visited Singapore's national plant center and had an orchid flower named after them to symbolize the friendly relation between the nations. He and Wong also signed a memorandum of understanding that is set to bolster the two countries' bilateral relations.

During the PM's stay in Asia, he also heard that Narendra Modi had won India's general election for the third time and congratulated him on social media for his victory and for holding a peaceful election.

Another far-east country is a close friend of Ethiopia. Japan granted almost seven million US dollars to support the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of ex-combatants. The UN Development Programme along with the National Rehabilitation Commission, are overseeing the process. Japan’s embassy explained that the funds would be allocated towards the purchase of equipment for the Rehabilitation Commission as well as towards renovating health facilities in rural Tigray.

Moving on, on Tuesday the 4th, a vehicle assembly plant called Fibella was inaugurated in the Amhara region. Renowned businessperson Belayneh Kinde built and owns the plant, which cost about three billion birr or over fifty million US dollars, and is set to create jobs for over a thousand citizens and assemble a thousand vehicles a year. Various federal and regional government officials including the region's president, attended the inauguration, admiring the relatively short amount of time the construction of the plant took.

And to close this edition, The Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration announced on Tuesday the 4th that gas prices will remain the same as last month. The Ministry revises gas prices monthly and decided not to make any changes for now but may decide to introduce changes next month. Currently, a liter of regular gas goes for seventy-eight birr and sixty-seven cents or a dollar and forty cents. The last time the Ministry made a price revision was last month when it decided to make an increase of one birr per liter.

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

We’ve prepared a super short survey so you can help us improve this show and make it even better. Find the link in the show notes! We know — you might be doing your grocery shopping, buried in a pile of laundry, or wondering what on earth show notes even are.

But go to the episodes’ description to find the link, it won’t take you more than 2 minutes to fill the survey out! Your feedback helps us keep the updates coming your way. Thank you!

Ciao!