Despite the Privatisation & Public Enterprises Supervising Agency (PPESA) deciding in 2001 for the return of a building to its “rightful owners”, it has failed to get the decision implemented for the past 12 year.
After recently reversing its original decision, by claiming a lot of government investment had gone into the building, the Prime Minister’s Office has stepped in and stated that in two months the building should be returned. The original owners are the Ethiopian Khat Exporters Association and the successor to the Dire Dawa Chamber of Commerce, Dire Dawa Chamber of Commerce & Sectoral Association.
Ironically, the absence of an approval by the Prime Minister’s Office was the reason why PPESA could not implement its first decision, according to the claimants.
The four-storey building was nationalised in 1989, two years before the fall of the dergue regime. As a result, the owners of the building claim it was appropriated against the regime’s nationalization proclamation, the Government ownership of urban lands and extra urban houses proclamation no. 47 of 1975, which led to the confiscation by the government of buildings and land, deemed to in excess.
The dergue used this building as the Self help Bureau. Following the regime’s fall in 1991, the building housed the City Council and the Dire Dawa Mass Media Agency. However, it was early in the new regime, 1995, that the then Ethiopia Chamber of Commerce, to which the Dire Dawa chamber was a member, appealed to the PPESA for the reinstatement of the building which the Dire Dawa Chamber and the Ethiopian Khat Exporters Association had built 27 years ago for seven million Birr.
They seemingly managed early success when the PPESA decided in 2001 that the current occupants should hand over the building. That decision was never implemented, though. The PPESA never intended for the building to be returned to owners, says the president of the Dire Dawa Chamber of Commerce & Sectoral Association, Wondessen Zeleke.
The response of the occupants of the building to PPESA’s decision was that the government had invested a lot into the building, so they would it not hand over.
“After the property was taken by the government, we were subjected to pay for a rent to the offices we were using,” says Wondessen.
After PPESA’s decision, the claimants had continuously asked the Agency to implement the decision, but the Agency said that it did not receive approval from the Prime Minister’s Office to implement this, Wondessen said.
“The current users of the building were not interested to return the building to us.”
The Dire Dawa chamber wrote a letter to the Prime Minster’s Office in October 2005 to get some action out of PPESA’s decision, but there was no response, says Wondwossen.
The Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce & Sectoral Association ( ECCSA) also wrote another letter to the Office nine years later in May 2014. The following month a request was personally made to Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn, as an afterthought, during the second Public Private Consultation Forum (PPCF) held in June 2014 at the Millennium Hall.
The national chamber had a list of 10 questions dealing with such issues regarding access to finance, as well as the hefty deposits required to deal with tax appeals, and the 27pc mandatory bond purchase required of commercial banks. The Dire Dawa building, not part of the list, was presented orally as an eleventh question, and it would be one of the issues the Prime Minister said he would deliberate on after leaving the meeting.
“After the forum on July 10, 2004, I wrote a letter again to the Prime Minister’s Office demanding the implementation of the PPESA’s decision, which was passed 12 years ago that says the building should be returned back to the former owners,” said Solomon Afework, president of the ECCSA.
The Office produced a favourable decision two weeks ago, which has been forwarded to the board of the PPESA “for discussion”, according to said Wondafrash Assefa, Public Relations head at PPESA.
The current five story building of the ECCSA and Addis Abeba Chamber of Commerce & Sectoral Association (AACCSA) was also nationalized by the Dergue regime and they used the same building for 30 years paying rent to the government. That issue was resolved by the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, after it was raised by the Ministry of Trade during a similar consultation forum.
The four storey building which was constructed jointly by Dire Dawa Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Association and Ethiopian Khat Exporters Association in Dire Dawa.
Leave a Reply