By Abiy Berhe
I am a member of the Ethiopian diaspora I returned to Ethiopia in 2013 to invest mainly my knowledge and experience but also my savings in my country with the main goal of creating opportunities especially for young Ethiopians. My ultimate vision is to create a leading Technology company in Africa. In some technology areas we were blocked due to security clearance issues and in some areas we were able to operate.
We established a company in Ethiopia (in partnership with others) and as such we created employment opportunities for dozens of young Ethiopians. We conduct training for technical and marketing staff both locally and abroad. We also convinced multi-national companies to venture with us in Ethiopia to invest in the manufacturing sector.
In 2017 we were invited by Defence Construction Enterprise (DCE) to participate in a bid to supply high-tech elevators with intelligent access control for INSA head office building in Bole (Wello Sefer) area.
As the specifications provided in the bid documents were vague and inadequate, we contacted the DCE for further clarification. DCE Engineers referred us to the local consultant who didn’t have enough knowledge or information to answer all our questions. But they made a mention of a foreign consultant
This was a very important project (It is INSA head office) so we didn’t want to take it lightly. It is our commitment to do our due diligence as citizens and as professionals to present a complete and well prepared bid.
We contacted the foreign consultant directly by phone. We called the Ethiopian phone number but there was no response. We made a phone call to the companies head office in Israel. After a short conversation in English, we switched to Amharic as the person on the other end of the phone happened to be of Ethiopian origin. (We easily recognize each other’s accents, don’t we?) Especially those words like since (See’-nis’) etc…
We were told by this Amharic speaking individual to submit our questions directly to their local client (INSA. When we insisted to talk to their technical people, our fellow Ethiopian was frustrated and told us he will call us back.
The name of this company is Avorniga Technologies (https://www.avorniga.com) as correctly named in Tigrai Online Story. But this company is nothing like what Tigrai Online is telling us.
We checked out the company online and it was very suspicious. Their website is so plain, the type that you would put together within 30 minutes. They claim to have worked in Defence, Aviation, Telecom, etc ., but there are no indication what so ever to corroborate this claim. A search we did to see if they are involved in any other activities or countries in Africa (as they claim) or otherwise brought up zero results. At this point it was clear to us as what was happening.
There is a company incorporated in Israel (most likely by Ethiopians) and being paid as a consulting firm. In essence this company is non-existent. Its only purpose is to get paid as a consulting firm to embezzle hard earned Ethiopian foreign currency.
I talked to some friends to go to law enforcement to have this investigated. But I received discouraging answers from every one. They told me there was no law enforcement and no official will get in the way of another one. I was told “They all are thieves, don’t bother”.
What a one year time can do. Times have changed and we can tell this story now.
As to the bid, we were told it was cancelled and it will be issued again.
For further info you may contact me at Tel. +1 519 616 2970.
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