
Sep 14 , 2020
The board of the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) has appointed Yohannes Ayalew (PhD), the former vice governor and chief economist of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), as the new president, replacing Haileyesus Bekele. A board director of DBE, Yohannes was appointed to run the Bank beginning September 12, 2020. The board has dispatched his appointment letter to the central bank and to the Public Enterprises Holding & Administration Agency on the same date.
Yohannes, who was an executive director of the Ethiopian Development Research Institute, has to leave his role on the board before assuming the top executive position at the Bank, according to a source familiar with the case. It is not the first time a former vice governor has assumed such a responsibility. Getahun Nana, a former vice governor of the central bank, also had a debut as chief of Ethiopia's policy bank.
The board of directors of DBE has also decided to freeze all the pending loans that were approved while Haileyesus was on duty, according to the same source. Haileyesus, who served the Bank for the past two years, resigned on September 10, 2020. He was vice president of the Bank in charge of credit management until he was promoted to president on July 4, replacing Getahun. Before he moved to the DBE in 2016, Haileyesus was the president of the dissolved Construction & Business Bank (CBB).
The policy bank has been in deep waters due to the mounting bad loans mainly disbursed to commercial farms in Gambella.
Its non-performing loan ratio stood at 25pc in the last fiscal year, still an improvement from 40pc that was registered the previous year. The management and the board of the bank, chaired by Tegegnewok Gettu, a retired UN senior staffer, has developed a five-year reform plan that diverts the source of the finance from the central bank to bond bills and funding from development partners.
PUBLISHED ON
Sep 14,2020 [ VOL
21 , NO
1064]
Radar | Oct 08,2022
Fortune News | Dec 27,2018
Fortune News | Feb 26,2022
Radar | Apr 02,2022
Radar | Mar 27,2021
Dec 24 , 2022
Biniam Mikru heads the department of cabinet affairs under Mayor Adanech Abiebie. But...
Jul 2 , 2022 . By RUTH TAYE
On a rainy afternoon last week, a coffee processing facility in the capital's Akaki-Qality District was abuzz with activ...
Nov 27 , 2021
Against my will, I have witnessed the most terrible defeat of reason and the most sa...
Nov 13 , 2021
Plans and reality do not always gel. They rarely do in a fast-moving world. Every act...
Mar 25 , 2023
At a crossroads, Addis Abeba finds itself on the precipice of monumental transformati...
Mar 18 , 2023
Ethiopia's economy once hailed as a paragon of growth and development, now faces a co...
Mar 11 , 2023
Ethiopia is rapidly emerging as one of China's top African debtors, second only to An...
Mar 4 , 2023
Once again, Ethiopia has claimed international attention in the past few weeks for re...