The production and distribution of salt will undergo a radical overhaul following a study that revealed a poor market chain.

A bill has been drafted following the study conducted under Eyasu Simon, the senior branch coordination officer at the Ministry of Trade & Regional Integration (MoTRI). It is authored with hopes of addressing several market imperfections facing the production and distribution of salt and includes provisions for setting quality standards, inter-industry selling prices, dictating which companies receive salt inputs and restricting salt processing to regional states where the mines are located.

The draft also emphasises the accurate weighing and packaging of iodised salt when sold to consumers.

Eyasu discovered 30 million quintals of salt were mined but not available to the market at the time of his study. The problem of prices and supply shortage had nothing to do with the lack of resources but a poorly developed market chain, he told Fortune.

The study also found that most of the salt made available to the market is not adequately iodised and has unverifiable supply routes.

“We found most industrial processing plants had been buying contraband salt,” Eyasu told Fortune.

The study’s conclusions prompted the drafting of the bill. One of the primary reasons that compelled trade authorities to control the salt market is the declining yet severe iodine deficiency.

Iodine malnutrition causes disorders like mental retardation and reproductive failure; it occasionally may cause spontaneous abortions. The per capita salt demand stands around 4.5Kg with a yearly demand of half a million tonnes a year. A directive by the Council of Ministers back in 2011 made iodising edible salt mandatory. While Ethiopia has made progress, most of the population is still iodine deficient. Nearly 40pc of Ethiopian children were iodine low, a study published two years ago by Dovepress revealed.

Hagos Tiku, a lecturer and a fellow at Addis Abeba University’s chemistry department, says iodine has peculiar chemical properties. Unstable on its own, it needs to be infused into compounds like potassium iodate to remain stable.

“The price of potassium might be the significant factor contributing to its shortage in the supply chain,” he said.

Before the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, almost all of Ethiopia’s salt supply was produced in processing plants in Eritrea along the Red Sea. The salt supply chain was restructured after the war with new processing plants built in and around the Afar Regional State. Much of it is mined from the Dinkali Depression, which is close to 1,000Km from the capital. The site is a junction for three tectonic plates.

The area, referred to by National Geography as the “cruellest place on Earth,” compensates its inhabitants with piles of this “White Gold”.

There are 17 salt processing facilities, of which 12 are operational. Washed salt from these facilities is distributed to other plants for further processing before making its way into the market. SVS Plc, a company jointly incorporated by Ethiopian and Turkish investors, built the largest salt processor with the capacity to produce close to half a million quintals of iodised salt a month. The plant opened its operations in 2019 with a paid-up capital of 14.7 million dollars.

Guts Agro Industry Plc is a food processing enterprise that was established 10 years ago by Engidu Legesse and Yosef Amare at a paid-up capital of about 15 million Br and had a recent asset valuation of close to 118 million Br. The company’s manufacturing facilities are located in the industrial zones of Bishoftu and Hawassa, about 45Km and 260Km from its headquarters in the capital.