The government is amending the privatisation proclamation to specify which government body will oversee the asset valuation of public enterprises, bring them to public auctions, managing transactions and transfer the enterprises to buyers.

All these processes have been solely performed by the current Public Enterprises Holding & Administration Agency, formerly known as the Privatisation & Public Enterprises Supervising Agency.

The proclamation, which is under review by the Ministry of Finance and the Public Enterprises Holding & Administration Agency, with the technical support of the World Bank Group and the Tony Blair Foundation, aims at bringing transparency to the ongoing privatisation process of public enterprises, according to Brook Taye (PhD), senior adviser to the Minister of Finance.

"Since most of the state-owned enterprises have high values, the valuation and the transfer process needs to be transparent," Brook told Fortune.

Ethio telecom, Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopian Shipping & Logistics Services Enterprise and Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) are among the companies that the Executive Committee of the EPRDF decided to partially privatise last June. The Executive Committee has also ruled for the full privatisation of railways, sugar factories, industrial parks, hotels, energy and manufacturing plants.

The amendment process also attempts to balance a conflict of interest that may arise among government offices involved in the privatisation process.

While drafting the bill, the team involved in the process reviewed the experiences of counties that started privatisation decades ago, including some neighbouring nations, according to Brook.

Different countries applied diverse mechanisms while proceeding with the privatisation process. Some had formed commissions, agencies or departments under finance ministries, which oversaw the privatisation process.

A legal framework review co-authored by Mekdes Mezgebu and Mesfin Tafesse of the law office Mesfin Tafesse & Associates, encourages the initiative of the government to classify mandates.

"Clarity in relation to the articulation of the privatisation mandate as it applies to Ethiopian Airlines, Ethio-Telecom and EEP will ground the process on a strong legal basis," reads the review.

Before reaching the legislation stage, the bill will pass through different layers of reviews and approvals by technical committees, a steering committee and the macro committee chaired by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) to give it policy direction before it reaches the Council of Ministers and parliament.

The Prime Minister has also set up a 21-member advisory council to advise the government on the process of privatising state-owned enterprises.