THE REPORTER. Business/News. By:- Samuel Bogale. March 11, 20 | Construction Proxy

THE REPORTER. Business/News.
By:- Samuel Bogale. March 11, 2023.

#Afro_Tsion_Construction’s properties up for auction.

Two commercial banks have put Afro Tsion Construction’s residential properties and hospitality business up for foreclosure.

That is a big blow for the firm, which was formerly regarded as an industry leader in the construction sector due to its involvement in various public projects, including roads and government office buildings.

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) is in the midst of foreclosing on Afro Tsion Construction Plc’s five-star resort in Semera, Afar Region.The resort was built and owned by the construction company in Semera, Afar, and operated by Boston Partners Plc, the operator of Kuriftu Resort & Spa.

The CBE floated the bid two weeks ago. It is scheduled to open on March 21, 2023, with a floor price of 418.1 million birr. The property was built for resort and hotel services on 51,285sqm of land in Semera.

Wegagen Bank has foreclosed on several properties owned by Afro Tsion, a first grade contractor. The bank declared the foreclosure of 12 of the company’s residential properties in a bid made public on March 5, 2015.Eleven of the houses are 250sqm in area, while the last one is 1,500sqm. The lowest floor price is 9.5 million birr, while the highest is 132.4 million birr. The auction will take place on April 5, 2023.

Afro Tsion Construction, created in 1998 by engineering professional Sisay Desta with a capital of 50,000 birr, has been responsible for the construction of various big projects. Yigalem Industrial Park, a two billion birr general hospital for Addis Ababa Health Bureau in 2018, a stadium in Harari, and its own resort facility in Semera, Afar were among the projects.

Afro Tsion’s five-star resort facility with 144 rooms was supposedly built in Afar at a cost of half a billion birr. It was run as Kuriftu Resort Semera since its inception in February of 2019 till it went out of business almost a year ago. Apart from standard rooms, the resort also had villas, ground tennis courts, a playground, and other amenities.