March 1, 2007
The late, late Sunday press review
Here are some stories that stuck out of this week's Fortune newspaper. No sanitation stars to share with you this time as the paper's restaurant reviews have disappeared.
More detail on all the houses that have been left sliced in two to make way for the road widening in Addis's Aware area. (See past entries here and here.)
Residential destruction for road constructionMassive construction is underway to expand the narrow road once trekked by Emperor Menelik and his army on their way to the famous Adwa...In Kebele 09/10 of the Yeka District alone, 70 houses, 12 of them owned privately, have been completely demolished; there are many more sliced in different degrees, some of them exposing their various parts to the open.
[Osman Redwan's] kiosk, part of a two-room house along the main road, was gone two months back, leaving only the bedroom for temporary shelter, until he could find another Kebele house...As was the case with many of the shanty houses in the area, the relic of Osman's house has little to reveal on the question of whether it was used as a living room, bedroom or kitchen; perhaps it was used as a bit of everything. The wreckages left untouched, however, expose the life residents have so far concealed behind their walls and roofs.
"No one is against development," said Osman, pleased to know that his kebele rented house has given way to the public good. "But you get horrified when you realise that you end up losing your business and ruining your life. This is not war; development should not be at the sacrifice of individuals."
The most interesting thing about this story isn't the price cuts. It's the Ethiopian Telecoms' customer figures. Both ETC mobile and internet services are pretty ropey at the moment (even though, according to the story, there is lots of capacity going begging). What are they going to be like if they get all these extra customers they are trying to attract? ETC is a state monopoly by the way. So that means 30,000 internet connections in total in a country of 78 million people and growing.
ETC contemplates decreasing mobile and internet tariffsThe Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) is planning to lower its service tariffs for its mobile and internet customers...
ETC has about one million mobile customers and 30,000 internet subscribers. Although the Corporation has the capacity to cater to 100,000 internet users and 1.5 million mobile customers, the number of customers has not reached the targeted number. ETC has plans to expand its mobile network capacity to 2.5 million...
"Though it is a fact that the number of customers would increase with the tariff reductions, the Corporation is still bound to face another round of customer dissatisfaction if it can not provide quality services," commented a telecoms expert.
And finally, more on the everyone-hates-everyone theme (read the post Where have all the bloggers gone? and its comments section for background). Bloggers hate bloggers. NGOs hate NGOs. Editors hate editors. And, apparently, professional associations hate professional associations.
Dysfunctional Associations miss their callsThe fierce battles waged within and among associations in Ethiopia are not hidden from the public. They are embarrassingly exploding almost every week, to say the least. As it has often been reported by this newspaper, the battleground for power and control within associations tends to steal the spotlight from what they are meant to be when they were first created. Eventually, experience of many of them show that they become hostages to their leaders, before conflict of interest within them leads to open warfare...
A closer look given to these associations reveals that there are two teachers' associations, and five journalists associations. But, the problem is not so much in the number of similar associations, but in their collective ineffectiveness, and bickering among them.
Five journalists associations? A few months back, that was one for every paper.
Posted by aheavens at March 1, 2007 3:59 PM