Wabe Shebele Hotel Returns to Royalty http://www.addisfortune.com
19 August, 2008
The Federal Government has decided to return Wabe Shebele Hotel, located near Mexico Square, in Kirkos District, to its original owners. The project in the Privatization and Public Enterprises Supervisory Agency (PPESA) - established in 1995 - has granted the 12-storey hotel constructed in 1960 to the offspring of Prince Mekonnen H. Sellassie.
The project office is responsible for returning to claimants property nationalized or confiscated for reasons other than foreclosure. It has instructed the management of the hotel to calculate the government’s investment in the property so that the owners can compensate the government accordingly.
The Derg administration confiscated Wabe Shebele Hotel in 1967. It believed that the hotel was serving the interests of foreign guests and the wealthy, not the proletariat and the disfavoured.
“According to audit reports made, the revenue of the hotel sneaks out in different directions before moving to the hotel’s bank account. It is only serving the interests of the management and Board Directors, rather than the economy,” read a statement that appeared in the nation’s daily Addis Zemen in October 1967. “The hotel charges 20 Br for single lunch and 22 to 50 Br for rooms. The lunch charge sustains an urban dweller for a month.”
After Prince Mekonnen died in 1957, H. Sellassie I ordered the construction of Wabe Shebele where the Prince’s children were to be raised. Four million Birr from the prince’s wealth was used for the development, a member of the family told Fortune.
Prince Mekonnen’s children are Prince Wossenseged, Prince Michael, Prince Teferi, and Prince Dawit, who passed away. Three of them currently live abroad. Prince Be’ede Mariam, the only one still residing in Ethiopia, runs Probex Plc, a company engaged in import.
The hotel has 110 high class spacious rooms, and has four sister hotels in Goba, Langano, Wondo and Sodere. The two Hawassa hotels have been bought by United Africa Group for 6.95 million Br and the hotel in Goba will also be privatized soon.
When the project office was established, there were 29,000 claims from those whose houses had been confiscated during the military regime. Although the deadline for reclaiming houses was in April 2008, it was extended to July 2008. The number of claims made totalled 3,000.
The project office accepted 28,668 petitions in 1995, and rejected 23,197 of them between then and 2003, the year the Office of the Prime Minister suspended it. The ban was lifted in March 2005. Be’ede et al presented their claim to the hotel to the project office before the ban was introduced.