A proclamation drafted by the Government Procurement and Property Administration allows for the disposal of junk vehicles parked at government offices as scrapmetals.
The draft, tabled before the Council of Ministers (CoM), which has been in the pipeline for the past six years, will broaden the mandate of Government Procurement and Disposal Services on the sale of government vehicles that have been parked without giving service, either by auction or bids.
When the draft proclamation is ratified, the vehicles can be disposed of as scrap metals and sent to manufacturers forsmelting, ushering in a new system.
“A car that has fallen apart will not be auctioned off; like any piece of metal, it will be sold in kilograms,” Haji Ibsa, Director of Public Procurement & Property Administration Authority told The Reporter.
According to Haji, the system in place only allows for the disposal of junk vehicles at government offices and abandoned cars on streets, through auctions or bids, and junk vehicles that do not find a buyer will be left to rot.
A four-day survey conducted by the Authority in some State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) in April 2021, revealed a significant amount of wastage in junk vehicles. The survey, which covered some government offices, SOEs, and abandoned street cars, discovered that four types of vehicles totaling 9.6 million birr were being wasted.
The survey also found that there are other types of metals worth 79.6 million birr that can also be disposed as scrap, with some SOEs included in the survey.
The draft proclamation allows the Authority to oversee the procurement and disposal of properties by SOEs, broadening its mandate, which was previously limited to federal government institutions.
According to Setegn Gelan, the Authority’s Public Relations and Communication Director, the Authority hopes that having a mandate on SOE procurements will allow it to apply a single procurement system to all government offices. And help in the disposal of junk vehicles in SOEs such as Ethio Telecom, which has a significant level of wastage due to junk vehicles.
According to Haji, previously, parked junk government vehicles were given away for free to the former Metals and Engineering Corporation (METEC). However, the draft proclamation will now establish a benchmark for the junk price in kilograms based on the metal type.
This new system is expected to alleviate the country’s metal manufacturing factories’ difficulty in accessing raw materials, primarily due to the lack of foreign exchange.
The Ministry of Industry’s Metal Industry Development Institute has recently begun collecting scrapmetals from SOEs to supply manufacturers in the country. The Institute is also awaiting a pricing decision from the Ministry of Finance after proposing the removal of over 570 vehicles to manufacturers.
Tilahun Abay, Director of Planning and Policy Research Information at the Institute, welcomes the draft proclamation, citing its importance in legalizing the Institute’s recent work.
