METEC, which stands for Metals and Engineering Corporation, was set up in 2010. It is Ethiopia’s largest company, a military-run industrial corporation that has for years had significant influence in the economy. Though there has been some suspicion that the corporation was being used by government elites as a patronage it is in these past few days that it has become official.
Even though METEC’s mission was to improve Ethiopia’s engineering capacity through experimentation and foreign partnerships, failures on major projects have probably cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars. This documentary produced and aired by the state associated TV station EBC details the METEC embezzlement scandal. According to the documentary, the corporation allegedly committed both foreign and domestic purchases without following the proper procedure. Among the purchases were two old ships and fleet of smaller aircraft. Furthermore, the whereabouts of one of the airplanes is not yet known. It is also said that the corporation used 102,000,561 Ethiopian birr to sponsor different organizations including a football club. All in all, in the past six years 37 billion birr has been misused or misappropriated by the Corporation under the auspices of procurement and investment.
