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An estimated 40,000 condominium housing will be built in Addis Ababa City during the present fiscal year according to the city administration. It is expected that more than 72,000 people will be employed by the construction project said Kuma Demeksa, Mayor of Addis Ababa.

The construction of the 20,000 condos already underway is expected to be completed over the next two months said Kuma. He also added that the 17,000 condos began this year will be completed by April.

The Ethiopian government has focused on the housing sector and low cost condominiums are being built in the capital and regional cities.


Source: Ethiopian Press Agency

Mobile Phones will be used to help health professionals collect data, have it analyzed and receive feedback in a show case project to be launched next week in Ethiopia. The project is led by Technology for Change International and is expected to cost approximately 370,000 US dollars.

The project will distribute a thousand mobile handsets to health professionals in the Amhara, Oromia Southern and Tigray regional states. The health professionals will use the handsets to gather data on pregnant women and send it on to a central server.

Businesses in Hawassa, capital of the Southern Regional State, started using cash register machines as of last Thursday. VAT registered businesses in the city have transferred from using hand prepared VAT receipts to using the cash registers according to the report.

The cash register machines enable VAT registered businesses to abandon the use of VAT receipts except when power outages occur said Seleshi W/Mariam in charge of the tax awareness training process for the regional tax authority. The use of the electronic reporting machines ensures a smooth and speedy relationship between business and the tax authorities he explained. The system also avoids presumptive taxation according to Seleshi.

The Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority discovered millions in unpaid back taxes through its continued investigation of oil companies. Unpaid taxes from Total Ethiopia and National Oil Company have particularly been identified according to sources.

Total has paid 11.9 million birr of the 23.9 million that it was required to pay in unpaid VAT and withholding tax. It is contesting the remaining 12 million birr said sources.  The authority determined the amount it was owed based on payments made for technical services. This is in transgression of the tax law which designates that all payments in consideration of any kind of technical services or expert advice rendered outside of Ethiopia in any form shall be liable to tax at a flat rate of 10pc, which shall be withheld and paid to the tax authority.