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Toronto – Addis Ababa City reportedly proposed a 230.39 billion birr budget for the upcoming budget year. It is said to be higher than the current one by 68.3 billion birr.
BBC Amharic cited Abdulkadir Redwan, head of the city’s finance office, as saying that 62 percent of it is allocated for capital budget and the remaining 38 percent goes to recurring regular spendings.
The allocation for capital is higher because of the spending cup for the recurring budget, he said. “When a capital project is inaugurated and becomes operational, it has a tendency to increase the regular budget. when that is considered, regular budget allocation should have increased,” Andulkadir is cited as saying.
The city’s budget is said to have increased five fold in a span of four years, according to a BBC Amharic report. Last year’s total budget was 162.03 billion birr which is lower by 42.1 percent compared to the proposed one for the next year’s budget.
The budget is being debated in the council, according to the source.
The city’s finance head said there are three considerations in the preparation of the proposed budget for the next fiscal year. The city’s anticipated economic growth and amount of tax to be collected is included in that “Amendment” made to land to be available for lease and the tax to be collected from it, and adjustment to service charge in service delivery to residents. The city administration claims collections for service delivery charges are negligible compared to the city’s spending to deliver those services.
The proposed budget is expected to be ratified by mid July this year, Abdulkadir is cited as saying.
Addis Ababa City’s spending over the past five or so years – specially the capital budget spending – has been controversial.
In 2022, the city claimed that it spent over $U.S. 45 million (two billion Ethiopian birr) for the renovation of the city administration’s building. When adjusted to current inflation, the spending is over 3 billion birr.
And this year, the city said that it spent over 33 billion birr for the corridor development project. The exorbitant amount of spending aside, the majority of Ethiopians see the project as one motivated by political goals to destroy the historical heritages in the city. Also, hundreds of thousands residents have been uprooted from their properties against their wills.
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