After dragging years and multiple companies to upload land-holding information of residents into a digital system, the much-anticipated reform of land-related services across the capital initiated by the Land Development & Administration Bureau nears launch.

The 68 million Br project has taken six years and three companies to see the light of day.

Six years ago, a bid to provide hardware and software components was bagged by Hyda Plc, which has supplied hardware for major banks such as Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) and Xoka IT Solution Plc won a 14 million Br, respectively. Meanwhile, the struggling subsidiary of Orchid Business Group Plc won a 54.6 million Br bid to provide the network infrastructure.

The two companies pointed to the delayed performance of Orchid Construction in building the network infrastructure as the primary reason for the protracted completion of the digitisation process that commenced operation in July.

Manager of Hyde, Ermias Belayneh, recalls that the tender was cancelled three times due to the absence of a company that can provide a queue system and a land tenure system simultaneously.

"We had lost bids twice," he recalled.

According to Ermias, a joint venture between their company and Xoka was the final remedy to the dearth of companies despite delays in network infrastructure construction later on.

He pointed to the reshuffling of officials over the last few years as an additional factor that contributed to the hold-up of the project. In spite of the challenges, Ermias believes that the new system will significantly decrease land-related corruption over time.

His counterpart shares the sentiment.

Biruk Berhane who manages Xoka revealed that the project should have been completed in three months let alone take years.

"But we couldn't put software without a server," he told Fortune.

Biruk acknowledges the role of the system that uses peculiar numbers on Digital IDs and Tin Numbers in helping improve service and guaranteeing that information does not get lost.

Despite repeated attempts by Fortune, Orchid Business Group was not available to comment on the development of the story.

Land-related services have been suspended several times during the last two years with the last embargo two months ago.

Officials usually cite increased fraud as the major culprit. They hope the electronic system will replace the long-standing paper-based filing and processing of land tenure documents that has been a source of fraud and frustration for the broader public.

Sisay Getachew took the helm of Addis Abeba Land Development & Administration Bureau from former defence minister Kenea Yadeta less than a year ago.

He suggests that removing paper from the system will significantly reduce delays in service provision and improve tracking capabilities.

"A paper system had several gaps open for fraud," he told Fortune.