2021 – Page 18 – Ethiopian Business Review

Reduced physical engagement with cash due to COVID-19 triggered an increased demand for digital transactions and was coupled with the central bank’s measurements towards limiting cash withdrawals. The number of digital payment and online delivery companies has boomed to 35. Although the time is ripe for fintech companies and software developers, newly placed regulatory frameworks by the central bank are stunting the sector along with banks’ stubbornness in sticking with bricks and mortar. Ashenafi Endale, explores how de facto payment and delivery companies are struggling to transform into independent operators under the new directives of the central bank.

Sport managers of high-end teams usually uncover every stone to find outstanding performers from small fields around the global village. But now, private sport investors who cultivate and market talent are emerging. Private sport academies nurture budding talent and train them with qualities that grow their visibility in the eyes of elite teams. In Ethiopia, sport investment has been a state initiative for long and most football clubs have been dependent upon government funds until recently. The trend is shifting especially after DStv started airing Ethiopian football games, thus opening more opportunities for sport investors working on the grassroot level. Abiy Wendifraw, witnessed the commercialization taking shape in football.

Urban thinking is often shaped by artistic touches. A simple painting can change minds, more than lectures or politicians’ speeches. A city with more artistic room can transform residents into civilized minds rather than modernization enthusiasts. For street artists thriving to bring such taste, Addis Ababa is rather a construction site than an inspirational neighborhood. Street art, an under formation concept in the capital, has to compete for space, amidst growing use for walls, buildings, structures, and outdoor spaces by commercial ads. Samuel Habtab, traveled around with groups of street artists rebranding the capital.

Foreigners residing in Addis Ababa usually have no choice but to fit into the status quo. Irrespective of their social makeup and which continent they are from, they blend fast and move on with the existing spectra. This is mainly due to an absence of room to socialize. Especially Africans have less options since more venues emulate western cities than African values. Finding their original staple food and drink, authentic gestures, art, and language in Addis means ending homesickness. House of Fulani, is the pan-African make-believe unveiled in the heart of Addis Ababa, to serve the growing African community in the capital. Kiya Ali, paid a visit.

Over the past decade-and-half, the drive for industrialization through infrastructural expansion and mega industrial projects called for significant resource requirements. Ethiopia has little mineral exports to take advantage of a commodity price boom, so it must mobilize resources from local and foreign sources.

Major global threats—including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and rising inequality—call for large-scale concerted action. The challenge facing policymakers today is to support big structural transformations that can make economies simultaneously more productive, more inclusive, and less carbon-intensive. Public development banks (PDBs)—at the local, national, subregional, regional, or interregional level—are key to helping governments finance a rapid recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, and to ensure that economies serve people and the planet far better in the long run.

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Boeing has entered into agreement to pay a total criminal monetary amount of over USD2.5 billion, the US Department of Justice disclosed on January 7, 2021. Criminal information filed at northern district of Texas, Under the deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), charges Boeing of conspiracy to defraud the united states.

The total USD2.5 billion, is composed of a criminal monetary penalty of USD243.6 million, compensation payments to Boeing’s 737 MAX airline customers of USD1.77 billion, and the establishment of a USD500 million crash-victim beneficiaries fund to compensate the heirs, relatives, and legal beneficiaries of the 346 passengers who died in the Boeing 737 MAX crashes of Indonesia’s Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302.

“Boeing’s employees chose the path of profit over candor by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 Max airplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception. This resolution holds Boeing accountable for its employees’ criminal misconduct, addresses the financial impact to Boeing’s airline customers, and hopefully provides some measure of compensation to the crash-victims’ families and beneficiaries,” stated Acting Assistant Attorney General David P. Burns of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Boeing Max products were grounded in 59 airlines, to which the company pays compensation, apart from the families of the deceased in Indonesian and Ethiopian demised flights. All 157 passengers lost their lives during Flight 302 and 189 in Flight 610.

Digital Transaction Prospects and Vacuums

Private Football, Academies

City as a Canvas

The Rising of The Fulani Empire In Addis

Financing Long-term Development Plans

The Age of Public Development Banks

Boeing agrees to pay USD2.5 billion over 737 Max fraud conspiracy charges