Haile Gebrselassie Says He Might File a Suit against Addis Ababa City Administration

By Gubae Gundarta

The Addis Ababa City Administration has recently taken some harsh measures against some 33 investors in the realm of real estate business. Apparently, the world renowned athlete, Haile Gebreselassie was one of the venture capitalists who fell prey to this action. “The measures taken by the City Government are not right. They need to reconsider that again. If they don’t do that, I might proceed against them legally.”

Haile said he turned in an application requesting the authorities to revise their decisions and the measures (land confiscation) they have taken against him and 32 others, back in August 13, 2010. He was discussing with his lawyer the possibility of taking the city administration to court for he hadn’t gotten any response from the concerned office.

Haile and Alem Real Estate Company received an area of 40,000 square meters from the city administration on terms of lease on October 7, 2005. The blue- print of 38 villas and 224 condos to be constructed on the property located in Bole Sub City’s Kebele 18, has already been taken care of by Gerrita Consultancy. Haile indicated that it was when their real estate venture was about to undertake construction that they didn’t agree with the neighboring Addis Real Estate. The bone of contention between Haile’s real estate business and Addis Real Estate, which lies just adjacent to it, was that the borderlines were not properly marked out. “We got the plots of land demarcated only this week, October 26, 2010. It means four years after the land was actually leased out to us. And then, they confiscated the land and all documentation pertaining thereto saying we haven’t undertaken the business soon enough. This is not legal.”

Awoke Hailemariam, Deputy Manager of the administration, commented on the issue drawing attention to the fact that the administration’s door is open for anyone who wants to appeal against the measures that it has taken. “Otherwise we are doing our job meticulously and correctly.”

The administration has given about 6,000,000 square meters of land to investors in this line of business since 1998. It claims the assessment of their performance after all those years was found to be only 14%. The cabinet of the current mayor, Kuma Demekssa, was not happy with this figure and therefore opted for this retribution.

Besides Haile, many others are also showed utter indignation in reaction to the punitive measures of the city administration.

NewsDire Staff Writer
Gubae Gundarta