One of the first private banks in the country, Dashen Bank, passes decision to mitigate the effect of the coronavirus on the economy, customers and staff.
The company has announced on Thursday that businesses are directly and indirectly affected because of the outbreak of coronavirus, which WHO declared a global pandemic.
Due to that to mitigate the social and economic damage related with the virus the bank stated that as a corporate social responsibility running a responsible business, Dashen Bank considers challenges and hardships that its customers are facing and decided to readiest some of its usual activities.
Asfaw Alemu, President of Dashen Bank, told Capital that as a responsible body the bank has passed several decisions.
“We are working our part to contribute on tackling the latest challenge the country and the world in general faces. We may have also further mitigation strategy based on the condition of the outbreak,” he said.
He said that precaution measures are the priority for the time being and will take several protection actions at all branches and points of ATM that the bank manages.
Furthermore the bank has doubled the daily cash withdrawal on VISA and IFB ATM cards to 10,000 birr from the previous 5,000 birr. “We made this to minimize customers visit to the bank branches that contributes on the limitation of movements, which one of the major reason to expand the virus,” Asfaw said.
The Bank has also waived the ATM transaction fee, Extension commission fee in the course of extending the validity of LCs, 50 percent commission fee in the course of extending the validity of purchase orders, and Re-Negotiation fees on loans and advances for a period of 60 days effective from tomorrow Monday March 23.
The president stated that the period and other further decision will be seen in the future, while the cost of the decision would be known based on the stated time frame or in the future.
Asfaw said that the bank has already annulled several meetings and trainings aiming to contribute for cutting the mass gathering.
Dashen Bank stands with businesses, customers in these difficult times
Catherine Hamlin: Grief in Ethiopia as trailblazing Australian doctor dies
No-one came to meet Catherine Hamlin the day she arrived at a tiny airport in Ethiopia in 1959.
More than 60 years later, the news of the Australian gynaecologist’s death at the age of 96 was met with an outpouring of grief in the country she had made her home.
That is because of the work Dr Hamlin – along with her late husband, Reginald – did transforming and, in some cases, saving the lives of tens of thousands of women who had been cast out of their communities.
Treating obstetric fistulas – a preventable injury sustained in childbirth that leaves women incontinent and can lead to other infections – would become her life’s work.
“These are the women most to be pitied in the world,” Dr Hamlin told the New York Times in 2003.
“They’re alone in the world, ashamed of their injuries. For lepers, or Aids victims, there are organisations that help. But nobody knows about these women or helps them.”
Elinor Catherine Nicholson was born in Sydney in 1924, one of six children. She decided to train to be a doctor because she wanted to help women and children.
After she completed her training, she began work at Crown Street Women’s Hospital, where she met a doctor from New Zealand, Reginald Hamlin.
They were married in 1950, and had a son, Richard, two years later.
But the two wanted to go and work in a developing nation, and one day an advert in British medical journal The Lancet caught their eye.
“It just read ‘gynaecologist wanted in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa’,” Dr Hamlin told the BBC in 2016. It was enough to pique their interest, and the couple applied.
“We felt we would like to do something to help people in the world, because we had had so many advantages,” Dr Hamlin explained.
The idea was to stay for a couple of years. “But we never came back.”
So they set off from Sydney, sending a cable from the middle of the Indian Ocean to let their new colleagues know of their imminent arrival. It didn’t quite go according to plan.
“The cable didn’t get there until three weeks after we did, so there was nobody to meet us.”
But they soon settled in, and it wasn’t long before they began to notice a number of women with a condition they had never seen before: obstetric fistula.
“We were touched and appalled by the sadness of our first fistula patient: a beautiful young woman in urine-soaked ragged clothes, sitting alone in our outpatients department away from the other waiting patients,” Dr Hamlin later recalled to the Guardian.
“We knew she was more in need than any of the others.”
Two million women live with the condition globally, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Without help, many die. Those who survive – like the woman in the waiting room – are left with injuries that leave them incontinent, sometimes heavily.
In Ethiopia many were left with a deep sense of shame. They found themselves banished to the outskirts of their communities, abandoned by their husbands. The stigma and social isolation led some to end their lives.
But the Hamlins knew it was both fixable and preventable – as they told Ethiopia’s then ruler, Haile Selassie.
“He said, why do my women get this terrible thing where they can’t control their body waste?” Dr Hamlin told the BBC.
“We said, it is nothing to do with your women, it is to do with your lack of doctors in the countryside when they need to have a Caesarian section.”
Mamitu Gashe was one of the women who Dr Hamlin and her husband treated in the early days, when they worked at Princess Teshai Hospital.
It was 1962, and Mamitu had suffered a fistula giving birth to her first child. It was a three-day labour, and the baby did not survive.
Like so many other women in Ethiopia, she was left incontinent. But she had a sister in the capital, and her family took her to the city to find help.
It was then they discovered the Hamlins’ specialist ward.
“As soon as I arrived there, they treated me with compassion and I started to feel much better,” she told the BBC after she was named one of the BBC’s 100 Women 2018.
“They told me that I was not the only one suffering from this, that other women had this. As soon as they said that, I felt hopeful, I felt so happy.”
But the Hamlins would not only help repair the damage; they also gave Mamitu – who has no formal education – a new career: she is now an internationally respected fistula surgeon, having been taught by the Hamlins.
“I couldn’t read or write,” she explained in 2018. “Everything I knew, I knew from the Hamlins.”
Mamitu was one of the staff members the Hamlins took to Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital when it opened in 1974.
In 1993, Dr Hamlin lost her beloved husband. Faced with a choice to stay or leave, she decided her work was not yet done.
In the following years, the Hamlin Foundation opened five rural hospitals offering healthcare to women, as well as a facility for long-term care patients. Then, in 2007, Dr Hamlin saw one of her initial dreams finally fulfilled: the Hamlin College of Midwives opened.
It is thought the organisation has treated more than 60,000 women for obstetric fistulas over the decades.
But in spite of these successes, Dr Hamlin was still disappointed at how little had been achieved,
“We had one little girl not too long ago, who had terrible injuries,” she told the UN’s World Food Programme in 2011.
“She had been lying curled up for nine years on the floor on a mat. Her mother had been looking after her, thinking perhaps that the urine would dry up. She was in a state of malnutrition, 22kg (48lb), as she was carried on the back of her poor old mother, coming into the hospital.
“She broke our hearts.”
And so, Dr Hamlin continued her fight for the women of Ethiopia to the end.
Last year, Ethiopia’s Nobel Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed handed her a prestigious citizenship award – one of many she was given during her lifetime. Then, in January, she celebrated her 96th birthday. Mamitu was by her side.
“We called Catherine mum, because she is like our mother,” she explained to the BBC last year.
Dr Hamlin died on 18 March at her home in Addis Ababa, the place she made her home. She left behind her son, grandchildren and a dream she wants others to fulfil in her memory.
“My dream is to eradicate obstetric fistula. Forever,” she said.
“I won’t do this in my lifetime, but you can in yours.” (Compiled from Agencies)
High level delegation visits Djibouti to see the progress on fertilizer and wheat import
Djama Ibrahim Darar appointed to lead the Ports of Djibouti
A high-level delegation led by Omer Hussein, Minister of Agriculture, paid a visit to Djibouti late last week to see the progress on fertilizer and wheat imports.
On the three days visit that concluded on March 15 the delegation that includes senior officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Services Enterprise (ESLSE) together with the Ethiopian Ambassador to Djibouti, Abudlaziz Mohammed, visited Doraleh Multipurpose Port (DMP).
Capital learnt that the delegation’s visit was to oversee the good progress of the operation of unloading bulk carriers of fertilizers and grains at the port.
“The visit happened at a time when the flagship of our port infrastructure achieved a new height of performance in this area,” said Djama Ibrahim Darar, General Manager of the Ports of Djibouti SA/ DMP, who took over the Ports’ management since the sudden passing away of the late Saad Omar Guelleh, on October 7 last year.
Djama disclosed that several bulk carriers transporting wheat and fertilizer for Ethiopian farmers have recently docked on the quays of DMP, and said “unloading these ships as quickly as possible to bring the goods to the Ethiopian highlands before the rainy season is one of the priorities of the management of this flagship of our ports infrastructure.”
According to the port officials, as the rainy season in Ethiopia begins in June, to achieve this task, the management and employees of the port are working diligently and the bagging machines installed at the port work at full speed.
More than 500,000 metric tons of bulk goods, mainly composed of fertilizer products intended for Ethiopian farmers, have been dispatched since the beginning of 2020, they said.
The Port received six fertilizer ships carrying 409,708 metric tons since the fertilizer season started in mid-January and 50 percent of the ships cargoes were treated in two months; at least 30 percent (126,095 metric tons) of the above volume was unloaded in the silos, according to the information obtained from the Port.
DMP operations recorded an exceptional performance of 20,000mt of discharging speed on March 9, 2020 for Captain Georgios S. ship docked at berth 5. The port unloaded on average more than 10,000 tons per day depending on the availability of trucks. To date, more than 600,000 metric tons of goods have been handled and DMP silos accommodate over 79,000mt of grain and 8,500mt of fertilizer.
“The increase in port productivity is the result of a very good coordination between the Djiboutian and Ethiopian parties. More than 300 trucks of bulk goods, such as grain and fertilizer products are delivered daily for instance,” the port officials told Capital.
In addition to trucks, a total of 2,590 tons of fertilizer and grains are routed daily to Ethiopia by rail. In each trip, a train carries a load equivalent to 74 trucks. In total, 18 trains have been dispatched to Ethiopia from DMP facility with a total of 45,900mt including 28,400mt of fertilizer in the past few months. The railway operation capacity is currently one train per day and has recorded a performance of loading speed of 24 hour.
Roba Megersa, CEO of Ethiopian Shipping and Logistics Services Enterprise (ESLSE), said that comparing with the past year wheat is being transported in good condition.
“26 vessels are transporting the wheat and so far 13 vessels docked at Djibouti. We are working together to halt port congestion and use the silos properly,” Roba told Capital. The delivery of trucks is also in good condition, according to Roba, while using train is the other alternative to transport the bulk cargo to the country.
“Within three months the train has transported cargos that it transported in full year, last year,” the CEO added.
Roba agreed that if more trucks were available at the port, the port can handle it but as a nation there is shortage of trucks.
“Transporting fertilizer takes time since the product destination is up to the farmer’s door that makes the turnaround time longer, that is one of the reasons to make available more trucks, while the port is now in good position to serve Ethiopian cargo,” the CEO added.
To accelerate the coordination between the two countries, a working committee was created at the bilateral meeting held during the last visit of the Djiboutian delegation led by Aboubaker Omar Hadi, Chairperson of Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority, with the Ethiopian team led by Dagmawit Moges, Ethiopia’s transport minister in Addis Ababa at the beginning of the year, which had a positive impact on the transfer of merchandises, according to the port officials.
At the meeting Omer Hussein informed the port officials that Ethiopia intends to export herds shortly and stressed the need to set up an animal park in the Port.
According to the information from the port, the port will soon have a high-end animal park capable of accommodating sheep and goats as well as cattle and camels, fit with drinking water.
Ethiopia has high interest to expand the livestock export that is one of the major commodities that the country loses on the contraband route in every direction of its borders.
Following the passing away of Saad Omar Guelleh, Djama Ibrahim Darar, who served as one of the top management team at the Ports of Djibouti SA for several years, took over the leadership of Djibouti ports facilities.
In his long years of service to the Port of Djibouti, Djama has worked tirelessly to strengthen Djibouti-Ethiopia ties. He has been a constant figure in the bilateral discussions since the establishment of the joint commission set up to help resolve any bottlenecks and ensure a quick and smooth transfer of goods on the Djibouti-Ethiopia corridor.
Djama Ibrahim Darar
Djama Ibrahim Darar is appointed Director General of the Port of Djibouti SA & DMP on November 19, 2019 by the PDSA Board of Directors.
He is a senior and experienced executive, holding a postgraduate degree, who has worked at all levels to lead the economic lung of the country, the Port de Djibouti S.A (PDSA) and the new Doraleh Multipurpose Port (DMP) complex.
Djama has served as interim general manager since 2014, and was later appointed Director of Strategy and Public Relations in 2017 and is one of the actors of the establishment and realization of the Port of DMP. 
Djama has served in various capacities including Commercial Director from 2008 to 2017, in addition to serving as Director of Operations, a post he served during the period of 2010-2012.
Djama has also assisted the Port of Dakar (Senegal) sharing his long years of expertise gained through almost two decades of working for the Port of Djibouti starting in 2002 as Technical Advisor to the Director General of the Port of Djibouti.
Passionate worker and supporter of lifelong learning, what matters most to Djama is the result. And as such, he worked on various projects including:
The implementation of port certifications: ISO 28000 and 9001.
Active member of the bilateral commission between Djibouti and Ethiopia as an expert.
Active member of the COMESA joint commission as an expert
Active member of the PMAESA commission and other international organizations as an expert.
Speaking in various international forums and conferences in South Africa (Durban, Port Elisabeth…) In Kenya, Mombasa, IAPH world ports in Indonesia, Bali, in Morocco, Casablanca, in Ghana, Accra, in Cameroon, Yaoundé on role of Public-Private Partnership organized by the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank… etc
He is also a former member of the French Institute of Audit and Internal Controls (IFACI), affiliated to “the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA)” which is located in France, the body responsible for representing the internal audit profession, to promote its development and to serve internal auditors.
Djama Ibrahim Darar is the right man at the right place!
CBE donates 10 million birr
The state financial giant, Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, has donated 10 million birr for the Ministry of Health for the fight against corona virus.
