The Addis Abeba City Administration's Trade & Industry Bureau is set to build 16 fuel stations in the capital in partnership with multiple oil retail companies for an estimated cost of 208 million Br.

The fuel stations, which are part of the City Administration's job creation scheme and formalization of trade, will employ street vendors.

The job creation scheme crafted by the City Administration will see the granting of land where the fuel stations will be built for free to 16 different oil companies including NOC, ODDA, Gomeju, Oil Libya and Yetebaberut Beherawi Petroleum.

The stations will be built and managed by the oil companies and the profit goes to them, while they will hire employees provided by the City Administration.

The 16 fuel stations will provide different services such as car washes, cafeterias and garages and will hire between 20 and 30 street vendors at each fuel station, a workforce that will be supplied by the Addis Abeba Urban Food Security & Job Creation Agency.

The Bureau made a request to the Addis Abeba City Administration's Land Development & Management Bureau asking for land as early as July 2019 and secure the land within three months, according to Dagnachewu Lole, director of informal trade formalisation at the Bureau.

"We were contacted and invited by the City Administration to hold discussions about the scheme in July 2019," said Eshetu Zeleke, CEO for ODDA Integrated Transport S.C.

"We then submitted their proposal for the project that involved details about the fuel station to be built as well as the salaries they are willing to pay," Eshetu said, who is one of the oil company owners that participated in the job creation for street vendors.

The new formalisation scheme comes after a recommendation from Deputy Mayor Takele Uma and is part of the City Administration's goals set in the current fiscal year.

Since a directive was enacted by the city two years ago that offered individuals operating in the informal sector a path toward formalisation, the Bureau has allowed street vendors to trade in designated areas.

In addition to building fuel stations, the city is also planning to build 148 small shops. To be implemented in all districts of the city, the small shops will cover an area between 30Sqm to 100Sqm of land.

The Bureau will use a raffle system that rotates periodically to grant the 148 stalls to the traders.