Ethiopia entered to agreement to acquire share from Berbera Port in 2018 with the aim to have an alternative port options
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Ethiopia reportedly lost its 19 percent share of Berbera Port, in Somaliland, over alleged failure to fulfil conditions it agreed to during the agreement to acquire it.
The East African Standard quoted Saad Ali Shire, Somaliland’s Minister for Finance, as saying “Ethiopia failed to meet the conditions needs to acquire the stakes before the deadline. So it has no stake now, but it needs to note that ownership does not matter.”
Part of the requirement was a financial contribution towards the development of the port which Ethiopia has not paid, according to the source.
51 percent of the share is owned by a private company from the UAE and the remaining 30 percent of the share belongs to Somaliland.
In 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government signed an agreement with United Arab Emirates-based DP World, which is said to be the world’s fourth largest operator, and the Somaliland government to acquire a 19 percent share of Berbera Port.
There were reports that the agreement over Berbera Port put Ethiopia in a collision course with Djibouti and Somalia.
A report by Aljazeera, published in April 2018, said that DP world had pledged to invest about $400 million on the port in Somaliland.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia this week said it is looking into the question of why Ethiopia lost its share over Somaliland Port.
According to a report by Addis Admas, a local Amharic newspaper, Ethiopia’s cargo ship was in Berbera Port, with an 11,200 metric tons load of consumer goods, in June of last year for the first time in 20 years. In the same month, the Shebele ship unloaded another 15 thousand metric tones of goods.
Related reading : Berbera Port deal position Ethiopia on a collision course with Somalia and Djibouti
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