Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn has received an urgent request for assistance to help solve a long impasse between the heirs of Fitawrari Teshome Birru and Juventus Italian Sports Club over a 10,000sqm property near Meskel Square. The appeal is said to have been made by Italian ambassador Giuseppe Mistretta to the Prime Minister, the club confirmed to The Reporter.
What started as a dispute between two interested parties is said to have reached the Government of Italy, echoing resentment by the management of the club, to hand its almost half-a-century old property, which they have enjoyed for more than three decades. This comes after the club was given its last warning to vacate and hand the property to the state immediately.
The Prime Minister is said to have asked the Ethiopian Agency for Government Housing for clarification and to be looking at the situation as a last ditch effort to help solve the issue. The agency wrote to the club, informing them, “Unless our order to vacate is respected, we have no option but to invoke the use of government order 555/2000 and take immediate ownership of the (property).”
The facility is frequented by locals, expats and diplomats and has been at its present location since 1959, after a rental arrangement with Fitawrari Teshome for a sum of 2,000 birr a year. However, the family had not received any payment since 1984, at the conclusion of its rental agreement, according to the family. The ownership of the property was not nationalized to the state by the Derg regime, giving the club a rare privilege to stay at its current location.
“We were once asked to pay property tax on the property, as the legal owners of the property, however, because we did not have any income from it, we were in no position to pay any money,” a family spokesman told The Reporter. “However, Juventus has been paying property taxes under our name while staying at our property free of charge”.
Since the 1990’s, the hairs of the estate, first the wife and now the daughter have faced a number of legal hurdles to attain the property.
