The former Waliya striker Oumed Oukri returned home only to join Ashenafi bekele’s Hadiya Hossana in a one-year deal. The Gambela born Oumed is the second player next to the giant defensive midfielder Gatoch Panom who returned home to join Wolayta Dicha.
The presence of the two footballers boasting half a dozen years of adventure in foreign clubs is much expected to bring about an additional spark to the Ethiopian premier league second round fixtures.
Nicknamed the” The Cheetah” Oumed Oukri is much expected to revitalize the league season’s surprise package Hadiya Hosana and now he is handed a huge responsibility to save in poor form Sidama Bunna and newly appointed Coach Gebremedin Haile from relegation nightmare.
Serving nearly half a dozen sides in his six years stay in Egypt scoring a number of goals, the former Mekelakeya and Kidus Giorgis forward Oumed is going to spearhead Hossana’s strike force that was considered the weakest point in Coach Ashenafi Bekele’s squad.
The former Ethiopian Premier League Player of the Year Oumed is best remembered for his amazing pace. “Diehard individual effort and spectacular volleys from the edge of the box, he is going to be a real game changer for his amazing pace and thundering volleys. He gives Hossana an extra hand in tormenting our adversaries,” one of the senior players suggested.
Back from three weeks break due to international matches, the season’s surprise package Hossana is expected to stay on course at the top four finishers. “A fruitful three weeks break and new faces in the squad, we are ready for new adventures,” one of the players suggested.
Ethiopian international Oumed tasked to inspire Hossana
Deadline extended for aspiring telecom entrants
As per the request of bidders the Ethiopian Communication Authority (ECA) rescheduled the deadlines for the two telecom licenses bid document submission, meanwhile companies have demanded up to 45 days of extension.
The final date for the submission of documents for the highly anticipated opening up telecom sector was on Monday April 5.
However, on the same day the authority announced that it has pushed the deadline by three weeks which is till April 26.
On the announcement, ECA has stated that the decision to postpone for the submission of proposal is as per the request of potential bidders.
“Due to requests by bidders to have more time to finalize their offer in light of the COVID 19 market environment, ECA determined their request to be appropriate and the deadline for submission of bids for the two new telecom operator licenses is extended to April 26, 2021 at 10:00 am East Africa Time (EAT),” ECA stated on its social page.
It is now the second time postponing the submission period that was originally on March 5, while on the question and answer session of the request for proposal early this year; bidders had expressed their demand to get more time for preparation that was followed by pushing the date for April 5.
On the bidding process the authority has conducted several clarification and discussion with bidders as per their submission of query to which the final conference was held on February 25.
Balcha Reba, Director General of ECA, in his comment about the reschedule of the bid submission said that it is normal that bid submission date extension is requested by bidders, when they think they do not have sufficient time to complete their preparations for the bidding.
“Bidders officially requested to have additional time to finalize their bid proposal. After putting their proposal together, bidding companies need time to discuss with their board of directors, shareholders, financial partners, etc, to get final approval on their investment and offer. Hence, they have requested extension of bid submission date by 30 to 45 days,” he told Capital via text message.
“Considering this, ECA, in consultation with concerned entities determined the request to be valid, and decided to extend the bid submission date by three weeks (21 days),” he added.
The request for proposal was issued on November 27, 2020.
At the expression of interest request, about 12 companies had shown their interest to get as new entry to the industry.
About 36 requests and expression of interests from all over the world had come from those who wanted to be involved in the bid.
Recently, Balcha told Capital that the government has given required attention to close the bidding in a transparent manner.
Experts in the industry said that giant companies are aggressively working to be part of one of the two new operators in the huge market with about 120 million citizens. “Major global players on the telecom industry are highly eager to be part of the market and the presence of some companies is also seen the town,” one of the sector expert who closely followed the companies activity told Capital.
Railway proposed to Berbera
Ethiopia is considering connecting Berbera Port into Ethio-Djibouti Railway network under the public private partnership (PPP) investment platform. The planned project was not part of the 5,000km railway project that Ethiopia had tabled to develop about a decade ago.
The proposed project that is called ‘port to port connection project’ is expected to be carried out under the 10 year development plan that was recently endorsed.
The project is expected to be developed under PPP arrangement with potential investors. On the recent transport investment summit the project was introduced for interested investors. The project may have an estimated 310 km distance from Ayisha, which is connected with the Ethio Djibouti Standard Gauge Railway, to Berbera Port.
However, most of the project would be carried out inside the border of Somaliland, the administrator of Berbera Port.
Currently DP World, a Dubai based port operator, has carried out a massive expansion at Berbera Port, which is a good alternative for south eastern and southern parts of Ethiopia.
The document from the Ministry of Transport (MoT) that was disbursed at the summit indicated that only 60 km would be inside the Ethiopian border, while the remaining 250km will be developed in Somaliland.
The project distribution indicated it is expected to open alternative sea access and important international railway corridor to the country. It added that the project envisions constructing a standard gauge railway line compatible with the existing Addis Ababa-Djibouti line, railway stations, port rail connection and auxiliary facilities.
The estimated cost of the project is USD 1.5 billion; however, it is noteworthy that it did not clearly explain whether the amount is the total cost between the two countries or only on the Ethiopian side. On similar lines, experts commented that the amount should include the project of Somaliland.
The MoT description said that the project will improve the inland transport system of Berbera Port and will have an impact on all areas along the line and facilitate development of the port service industry and national economy of Ethiopia.
About 11 years ago, the government had proposed to construct the 5,000 km of railway system. From the stated distance, only 660 km of railway that connects with Djibouti’s 100 km Standard Gauge Railway was finalized early 2018, while the 392km Awash-Hara Gebeya railway line is under construction.
According to the previous proposal, the government had targeted to stretch the line in the; North, North West, West and South part of the country besides the Ethio Djibouti. The Ayisha, which is located in Somali region, housing the Berbera project is new on the sector development.
According to the transport sector, the ten year development plan highlights that the length of railway coverage would be 4,199km by 2030.
The ten year transport sector development plan is expected to come to fruition by PPP, joint venture, concession, FDI and fully ownership by the government that would be financed by international partners.
On the summit, the government has tabled 44 projects for the private sector to develop in different schemes.
It is also to be recalled that about two decade ago, the Ethiopia born Saudi billionaire, Ali Al-‘Amoudi, had targeted and envisioned to lay a railway track joining Somaliland to Ethiopia. This plan was envisioned in partnership with Middle East and North Americans partners in conjunction with the Ethiopian government.
Logistics actors mock impractical draft directive
Logistics sector actors mock the draft Multimodal Transport Operators Qualification and Licensing Directive which they claim is not properly crafted. However, the Logistics Office argued that it is under the draft stage and is more or less trying to accommodate the recommendation of the private sector.
On Thursday April 8, the sector actors and representatives of the Ministry of Transport (MoT), responsible for developing the directive had discussed the draft directive that targets to ease the multimodal monopoly for selected five players.
On the discussion, the sector actors heard that the proposal never took account details of the implantation process. They said that the directive was supposed to consider the coordination of other public offices for the realization of the government strategy.
The directive seems impractical without the coordination of other offices like customs, central bank, investment commission and others.
“The opening up of the multimodal sector is crucial for the sector in general and particularly for all over the economy since logistics is the backbone of any development in order to make it competitive and cost effective,” one of the private sector representative who attended the discussion told Capital. But he expressed his frustration that it seems that it is still never getting proper attention from the regulatory body, he states, “The draft directive shows me that the preparation process was very weak, which may directly align with the interest of the regulatory body.”
According to participants, for instance the draft directive stated the insurance coverage, whereas the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) has suspended insurers to give such directive.
“NBE does not allow insurers to provide unconditional guarantee, due to that companies are expected to deposit massive amount of money for guarantee. But the private sector does not have such kind of capacity or similarly for bank guarantee they have to have property for collateral, which is also difficult,” one of the logistics sector actors told Capital, adding, “In this two decades, the private sector does not own such kind of property for collateral.”
They said that the Investment Commission should have also a say on the directive to avail plots on lease or for free and also duty free scheme for import of machinery like other strategic sectors.
“For instance, the draft directive stated the ownership of five hectare of plot, a dry port, 3,000 meter square warehouse and other equipments including 30 owned trucks. To secure such mandatory facilities and equipments support is crucial that shall come from Investment Commission, while the directive does not mention about it,” one of the participants told Capital.
Similar issues have been in one way or another mentioned by participants to whom the regulatory body responded that it may revisit the draft document.
Despite participants criticizing the limitation of participants to five, the government has still shown a firm stands to restrict to 5 operators at the early stage.
However, if representatives do not give satisfactory response for the question for the selection of five companies more than the stated number of logistics actors with similar qualification may come. They said that it will be looked into and revised.
“Generally, I fill that one entity is only trying to show its effort for the sector, while it is dynamic,” a participant expressed his view.
One of the major freight forwarders appreciated the initiative that the government is considering to comprise the private sector on this, multimodal, valuable scheme, but argued that NBE should be part as well and consider the access to foreign currency to handle the business, “Otherwise it would not be applicable,” he emphasized.
“Leave alone the multimodal scheme that needs foreign currency for payment starting from loading port to Djibouti, but even at the current normal transit we are not able to settle the payment at Djibouti on time,” he told Capital.
“Not only the private sector but ESLSE is not paying its foreign currency accrued on time due to the shortened hard currency availability that is supposed to get prior attention by the central bank even before opening the multimodal,” he explained showing the other side of possible difficulty when the multimodal system becomes open.
According to the freight forwarder, who demands anonymity, the NBE commitment should be higher for the sector, besides incentives, which he said is crucial to ensure competition. “ESLSE is accessing plots for free or lease that the private sector should get too,” he explained.
He said it is heavy investment that would create massive jobs and ease of doing business in the country due to that it needs tax and other incentives like some strategic sectors.
“The draft directive has locked the service price which is not also feasible in this devaluation trend,” he added.
Experts on the sector added that standard operating procedure shall also be identified. A freight forwarder has also recommended the government to commence the arrangement of bonded warehouse to ease the insurance issue.
The draft proclamation indicated that the investor who would be selected to operate on the multimodal must have a capital of 350 million birr of which 10 percent is on cash.
It also said that different machineries related with loading and unloading must be availed by the investor.
“We are trying to do our best to include the recommendation of the private sector,” Ewnetu Taye, Ethiopian Logistics Transformation Office Deputy Managing Director stated. He reminded that four deliberations had been conducted with the private sector besides receiving written comments, three times from them.
Regarding the comments on availability of foreign currency, he said that the investors should have understood the condition in the country. He reminded that although there is a delay on payment, still the government is committed to make available hard currency for ESLSE. “It is difficult to give full guarantee regarding the hard currency,” Ewnetu, who chaired Thursday’s meeting, said, adding “Besides that we are preparing a proposal to table for the government that finds ways to ease the hard currency issue. it would be implemented in relation with the implementation of the new directive.”
He added that the multimodal scheme by itself is saving the hard currency, which indirectly shall manage the issue of the hard currency.
According to the information from Ministry of Transport, the country enabled to save USD 20 million every year because of the multimodal operation, which is so far controlled by ESLSE.
“The insurance issue is related with customs but the experience of Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Service Enterprise (ESLSE) different than the claim from the private sector,” Ewnetu told Capital.
He said that Ethiopian Insurance Corporation, a state owned enterprise, is providing the coverage with attractive premium. “ESLSE is working on insurance bond and we believe that it will continue as per the current status,” he added.
On the other hand, since the sector is newly opened there have been several initiatives by different stakeholders to encourage the private sector role with different mechanism. Ewnetu underlined that the incentive may not directly be related with the duty free and other approaches, while there are programs designed by the government regarding the sector.
According to Ewnetu, the directive will be finalized and ratified in this budget year.
Multimodal scheme is the operation that handling cargos on coordinated manner with a single documents and different mode of transports from initial port to the final destination.
The first logistics policy that was recently issued indicated that one of the main benefits of a multimodal transport system is its great significance in saving foreign currency. Therefore, it is important to enhance the multimodal transport system.
“Multi-modal transport systems are mainly operated using sea shipping thus integrating other modes of transport such as sea transport, seaport and air transport is important. Making these modes of transport become multimodal transport operators increases service coverage and eventually benefits our country. Thus, the government has a belief to create additional multimodal operators,” the policy stated expressing its commitment for the sector development.
ESLSE is the sole operator of multimodal that was introduced about a decade ago.
