Ethiopia's military-owned Metals and Engineering Corporation asked the government to cancel 57 billion birr, close to $2 billion, of its debt, its new head, Brig. Gen. Ahmed Hamza, told Addis Zemen.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, one of the projects METEC worked on, in a photo dated August 26, 2024. (Office of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia via Wikimedia Commons, public domain) [file photo]
The amount was part of 70 billion birr, more than $2.4 billion, that the corporation, known as METEC, had borrowed from state banks, Ahmed told the Amharic daily, according to New Business Ethiopia in August 2019.
He said machinery and equipment worth 17 billion birr, about $586 million, bought with scarce hard currency had been abandoned and was deteriorating. METEC had taken on mega projects including the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, several sugar projects and the Yayu fertilizer project without going through bidding, he said.
Ahmed said METEC had operated like a mafia, without reporting to the government and without allowing its finances to be audited, the outlet reported.
In November 2018 police arrested METEC's former director general, Maj. Gen. Kinfe Dagnew, near Humera as he was reportedly trying to leave the country, and dozens of other officials were detained in a corruption investigation. Kinfe was charged in January 2019 with four counts of corruption over tractor procurement, Reuters reported.
Sources: New Business Ethiopia, EBC (Wayback Machine archive), Reuters