Nineteen Public Enterprises Amass over $3bln Revenue in 3 Months
ADDIS ABEBA- Government said on Friday that it has collected over 3 billion US dollars revenue from public enterprises in the first quarter of the current Ethiopian fiscal year.
The revenue has been collected from nineteen enterprises, said Public Enterprises Assets and Administration Agency (PEAAA) in its quarterly performance report presented to parliament’s revenue, budget and finance affairs standing committee.
Four enterprises have generated close to 80 percent of the total revenue, says the report. They are Ethiopian airlines, Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, Ethio Telecom, and Ethiopian Shipping Lines and Logistics Enterprise.
The report says the remaining three enterprises – Construction Works Corporation, Ethiopian Construction Design and Supervision Works Corporation, and Ethiopian Pulp & Paper S.C. – have all exhibited loss during the priod.
They all incurred 236 million birr loss in total in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, Beyene Gebremeskel, Director General of the Agency,
State-ruin PEAAA supervises upto 22 public enterprises including soon to be privatized hotels and prominent enterprises that give transport and logistics services.
The agency also supervises the underperforming Development Bank of Ethiopia, and Metals and Engineering Corporation (MeTEC) and Sugar Corporation.
The three public enterprises are in “multi-billions birr’ debt, Beyene said.
The agency is currently conducting a finance restructuring study to resolve and ease the debt burden that they are in through different mechanisms.
He, however, admitted some of them “are not really in a position to repay their debt”.
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By Sisay Sahlu