Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 21st of March twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

Let’s kick off this edition with this week's biggest news. There was a glitch in the system of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia on Saturday the 16th. It resulted in customers, mainly university students, withdrawing millions from ATMs and transferring large amounts through the bank’s mobile banking solution. The Bank said the incident was the result of a system upgrade gone wrong. Even though the Bank didn’t say how much was overdrawn, it did say that almost five hundred thousand transactions were carried out that day. Local media speculates that the amount is almost two and a half billion birr or over forty million US dollars. The bank’s digital service was inaccessible throughout the weekend due to this glitch. Abe Sano, The Bank’s president, said that the Bank is making efforts to have those who overdrew money return the funds. He said that customers who voluntarily return the money would not be prosecuted.

The Bank’s President also used the occasion to clarify that this incident was not a result of a cyber-attack. He said that even though the Bank has repeatedly fallen prey to such attacks, all of them failed. Abe said the Bank had deflected almost thirty thousand cyber attacks over the past two years. On Thursday the 21st, the Bank issued a final warning to overdrawers to return the funds by Saturday the 23rd, adding that the identity of those who don’t do it will be revealed: their names will be posted in their vicinity, their images will be released on mass media and the Bank will take them to court for administrative, criminal and civil penalties.

Another huge news that has taken over headlines over the past two and a half months is the deal between Ethiopia and Somaliland, which is set to afford landlocked Ethiopia access to the sea. Recall that Somaliland would get statehood recognition from Ethiopia and a share in one of Ethiopia’s profitable state-owned enterprises in return. Ethiopian Airlines was one company with its name floating around in this issue. However, an insider at the company told a local media outlet that there is no instruction from upper management to sell the company’s stakes to Somaliland and that there’s no evaluation of the company’s total worth to determine shares. The government has also not ordered the sale of the company’s shares yet.

No nation considers Somaliland a country even though it has its own currency, political system, and police force.

Since we mentioned Ethiopian Airlines, on Monday the 18th, in a press release, Mesfin Tassew, the company’s CEO announced that it is working on fixing the Axum Airport in the Tigray region. He also said that the Airport is set to be fully repaired and ready for flights in June this year and that it will set back the airline more than three hundred million birr or five million US dollars. Mesfin admitted that the repair process was taking longer than it should have been and that this was because contractors had safety concerns. Recall that the Axum Airport, along with other infrastructure in the Tigray region, has been severely damaged.

Still in Tigray, Eyob Tekalign, the State Minister of Finance and board member of the pension fund, announced that the government has decided to pay pensions to retirees in Tigray. He said that even though pensions cannot be paid without previously being collected from workers, because of the war and its consequences, pensions will be paid nonetheless. He said that retirees will receive pensions in the coming weeks and that this payment concerns both public servants and employees of private companies. A while ago, retirees from the region held a demonstration asking for pension payment and they repeated this request a few days ago when representatives from the Tigray community met with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who promised a swift solution.

Moving on, on Monday the 18th, a traffic police officer was shot in Gambella city, the capital of the Gambella region, located in western Ethiopia. Even though he didn’t die, he sustained serious injuries. The situation was called into question as militants from the Anuak ethnic group might be responsible for the attack. Tensions are high in the region over a possible fallout following this incident. Schools, banks and transportation service providers have all halted operations, concerned that the situation might escalate. Altercations and attacks between communities have increased since May of last year. According to a recent report from the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, more than a hundred people have been killed in the region since then.

In business news, a cement company under formation called Tegoga, which is set to build its factory near Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, said that unless it obtains loans from banks, it will be forced to sell forty-nine percent of its shares to foreign companies to be able to build its factory. Tegoga predicts that the factory building will cost more than seventeen billion birr or more than three hundred million US dollars. The board’s chairman said that the company has managed to collect three billion birr or more than fifty million US dollars from local individuals and companies so far, with a significant number of shareholders from the middle-income class. He added that the company would try to attract wealthy individuals to purchase the shares.

Next up, a new law that deals with public holidays has been in the works for a while now and is awaiting the approval of the House of People’s Representatives to enter into force. However, it seems there’s a roadblock, as the House’s Health, Societal Development, Culture and Sports standing committee raised concerns over how the draft law gives full responsibility and ownership of the Victory of Adwa holiday to the Ministry of Defense. On Monday the 18th, Representatives from the Ministry of Culture and Sport told the House that the victory of Adwa showcases unity, freedom and is instrumental in strengthening fraternity in the country so, organizing rights should be granted to the Ministry of Culture and Sport. The Ministry said that if they are in charge, the cultural aspects of the victory will be reflected better.

The House of People’s Representatives had a busy week as it convened to approve the nominations of sixteen new judges for the federal high court. The government official who presented the nominees said that the need to appoint more judges comes in the face of a serious backlog of court cases. He also said the recruitment process was fairly straightforward; there was a call for applications, and shortlisted applicants had to sit for an exam. Candidates who got the highest scores were selected and nominated for the job. The House unanimously approved the nominations even though members expressed concern over gender parity as only three women were nominated from a total of sixteen nominees.

And to close this edition, the US Agency for International Development (or USAID) is very active in Ethiopia. Sonali Korde, the organization’s assistant to the administrator for humanitarian assistance, was in Addis when she announced on Saturday the 16th that the USAID is granting more than four billion birr, or eighty million US dollars, to support those suffering the consequences of conflict and drought. The funding will also be used to treat and prevent malnutrition for mothers and millions of children under five.

And that’s it for this week!

Remember, if you want people to admire and respect you, or you want to get a great present for somebody you care about, or you just want to help us, buy one of our really cool and environmentally friendly T-shirts! They are made of 100% unbleached organic cotton, grown and ginned in Texas, spun and knit in the Carolinas, and sewn and printed in Missouri. To buy one, follow the link in our show notes.

Ciao!