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18 June, 2007
Ashraf Industrial registered with a $360 million capital
Ashraf Industrial Group, a Sudanese company with investment projects in Bahir Dar, Arba Minch and Ambo, said that its operations were being frustrated by “sluggish inefficient and insensitive” bureaucratic procedures it has come to face in various responsible government institutions.
Ashraf Industrial Group is registered with a capital of $360 million that has been fully paid in cash.
According to its Operation Manager, Ahmed Elbadawi, Ashraf Industrial, obtained an investment license in February 2004, for the processing of fish and meat, production of edible oil, juice factory, LPG gas storage and distribution and operation of sandstone quarry.
“Initially, everything was smooth in getting the license and land from the regional government but beginning the end of 2006 we are facing increasing problems, particularly we are having customs related delays and so on. Our plan was to begin production by the Ethiopian millennium. At such pace however, we are in doubt,” Elbadawi told The Reporter.
Elbadawi, who said that Ashraf Industrials had so far spent about a $100 million on its operations in Ethiopia, complained that his company was forced to incur more unnecessary expenses due to delays in custom procedures.
“We import equipment for our processing plants via Sudan to Metema and then Bahir Dar. We do this because the customs requirements at Port Sudan are smoother. However, once the shipment arrives at Metema, the trucks are forced to stay there from ten to twenty days. Imagine how much we have to pay for the extra days that we kept those trucks there. And above all these trucks with all the equipment are also forced to wait in the middle of nowhere.”
It was also dismaying to see that the customs office is understaffed to speedily handle the documents of so many investors, Elbadawi said.
“Mind you we are forced to wait in queue as the customs officer handles the case of people with hand bags and mobile phones. We have more pressing things to attend to and ask to be given priority but we are told that it is ‘work, whether it is about $3 million or $300 there is no difference’. That is so insensitive. How can you explain our documents being processed, they are locked in someone’s drawer and the person takes a leave?” Elbadawi told The Reporter on Friday.
In addition to problems at customs, inability to gain gate pass at the airport when receiving guests and owners of the company, incomplete and confusing requirements at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs for the issuing of work permits, and problems at the Investment Agency, are all matters that “we kindly ask the government to look into,” Elbadawi said.
“Very expensive surveying equipment was stolen from one of our sites, and the manager there went to the police and made his complaints. He was told that he should first investigate where the suspect might have gone to. Whose job is it to investigate?”
Elbadawi added: “We are employing 275 people permanently and training them. We are socially contributing to the residents around our site. We made a 100,000 birr donation to a hospital in Bahir Dar. We came here because we feel Ethiopia is our home, just as most Ethiopians feel at home in Sudan.”
“Now we are just waiting to see how things will turn out. We had a meeting of Board of Directors recently and the tendency then, if things don’t improve, was to assess what we should do with our equipment. We are thinking, ‘should we sell our equipment and leave or pack it out?”
Attempts to reach officials of the Ethiopian Customs Authority to get their side of the story were not successful until this paper went in the printing press.
By Namrud Berhane - Ethiopian Reporter