Addis Abeba And Oromia to Sort Out Border

High-level delegates of the Addis Abeba City Administration, led by Mayor Kuma Demeksa and high-level delegates of the Oromia Regional State, led by President Aba Dula Gemeda, had a field visit Thursday, January 1, 2010, with the intention of addressing long-standing border conflicts between the two regions.

The mayor and the president visited Anfo Meda, which is between Kolfe Keranyo District of the Addis Abeba Administration and Burayu town of the Oromia Special Zone.

"Between Burayu and Addis Abeba, for example, there are many people who live on Oromia land with Addis Abeba identification cards," said an official of the special zone.

During the caretaker administration of Mayor Brehane Deressa, the Burayu Administration had stopped 101 residential housing construction associations who were given land by the city from undertaking construction claiming that the plots given to them were part of Oromia where the Addis Abeba Administration had no jurisdiction.

"There have been no serious problems since Kuma came to power, but there have been development requests" an official of the Oromia Administration said.

Recently the Oromia Water Works Construction was developing the plan for the special zone and found that the plans of the two regions were overlapping at places, said Awol Abdi, head of the Land Administration and Environmental Protection Office. Such problems occur at Burayu and Sebeta. Awol downplayed the importance of the border problem, saying that it was something that could be solved. But he expressed concern about the effects of sewage from Addis Abeba in parts of the special zone.

The mayor and the president had discussed these issues during the visit, according to Awol, giving instructions to their experts to work out a solution. Awol says that there is a plan to create a project office that would deal with development issues pertaining to the two regions.

The towns of the special zone, all of which are found on the outskirts of Addis Abeba, have been enjoying higher investment levels as investors go looking near the capital.

Wudineh Zenebe