The Dire Dawa City Administration located in the eastern part of Ethiopia, fires 76 officials who failed to exercise good governance and address the issue the public has been complaining about.
The Administration has replaced the 76 individuals with new officials and also made reshuffle of 23 former officials. The city administration has also arrested 173 individuals accused of involving in the recent clashes, killings of innocent people and robbery in Dire Dawa City.
The Police have already completed their investigation on the individuals and passed it to the prosecutor to take them to court. Out of the 1,540 who are forced to be displaced because of the clashes, 1,483 are returned back to where they were living.
In a related development, the Dire Dawa Administration Council has also conducted its 4th extraordinary meeting and appointed new officials, including a speaker of the house, according to the state broadcaster ETV.
The report also indicated that to solve the housing problem in the city, the Administration has prepared land to start building house for 350 households using the budget of the city.
The Dire Dawa administrative council consists of the city of Dire Dawa and the surrounding rural areas. The council has no administrative zones but one woreda – Gurgura woreda. There are 4 Keftegnas, 24 urban kebeles and 28 rural peasants associations.
The total population was 151,864, of which 127,286 were males and 124,578 females,according to the 1994 census. The proportion of males and females is about 50.5 to 49.5 percent, respectively.
The urban residents of the administrative council number 173,188 while its rural residents 78,676. Besides, there were 52,245 households in Dire Dawa administrative council with an average of 4.7 persons per household, according to the census.
Meanwhile, currently the number of population in the area is reportedly increasing at a higher rate.