Working round the clock: a solution for Addis's clogged government bureaus?
and M-PESA gets the greenlight
If your attention span has been as short-lived as mine over the past few days, you’ll appreciate this edition.
City administration plans for more work hours
The Addis Abeba City Administration has come up with an idea to better customer service: make employees work 16 hours instead of the usual 8. This way the city can provide services starting as early as 6am and as late as 10pm. There’s even an option in there for a three-day workweek for employees but not the three-day workweek we’re all dreaming about. If they chose to clock in for only three days a week, they should expect every shift to run for 14 hours.
That’s not the strange part. The city administration has no plans to either hire additional staff or increase its budget for this new strategy.
The full story on Addis Fortune, where this was sourced, here.
Ethiopian government gives license to MPESA
Safaricom has just been granted a mobile money service license for M-PESA. This license cost 150 million US dollars. A story by The Reporter talks about how Safaricom’s parent company has seen a dip in profits by over 10 percent – due to its latest investment in Ethiopia.
In the 7 months since it began operations in Ethiopia, Safaricom has collected 113.4 million US dollars in revenue. The corresponding number in Kenya: 2.2 billion.
M-PESA’s services will be launched ‘in the coming months’ according to the full story on The Reporter.
Aid urgently needed in Tigary
Last week’s update included news that both the UN and the USAID had stopped sending aid – food to be exact – to Tigray. This was because it was being stolen and sold on the local market. This week, Addis Standard came out with a story that shows people are dying because of hunger-related causes.
The full story here.
TPLF’s request for legal recognition declined (due to trying to overthrow the government)
The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia has declined the request by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to be recognized again as a legal body. The Board responded by saying that they can’t do that because TPLF was involved in an armed rebellion. Also, the Board added they cannot find the legal grounds to reinstate the party, despite the war being over. What TPLF can do, instead, the Board suggested, is start from scratch and register as a new party.
The full story in Amharic on Wazema Radio here and in English here.
Refugees in Ethiopia from Sudan
The conflict in Sudan has brought many to Ethiopia looking for safety, through the border town, Metema in Amhara region. The International Organization for Migration is registering about 1,000 arrivals a day – so far more than 15,000 people have crossed over through this town. Though the refugees have found a safe space for now, there is not enough food and water for everyone. The full story on France24 here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
In the meantime, you can help support my work by forwarding this email to friends and family who might benefit from keeping up with what’s going on.
Note: I go through all the major news outlets, newspapers, online publications, and will at times, include reports, notes on parliamentary sessions, and go through fact-checking websites as well. I try to provide links to both English and Amharic sources, and I usually time-stamp the video I link to unless I think the whole video is relevant.