March 19, 2012 (ADDIS ABABA) - The Ministry of Agriculture, Ethiopia suspended land allocations for investment purposes to take time for assessment.

The MoA will reassess its internal structures and evaluate the work that is being performed on the land that has already been provided for investment before it commences its regular services.

The Ministry will review requests on a case by case basis to provide land for big projects said Isayas Kebede, Director of the Investment Supporting Directorate with the ministry. Since the Investment Supporting Directorate has been established the ministry has allocated a total of 342,099 hectares to local and foreign investment companies.

The Directorate took 3.6 million hectares of land in Oromia, Benishangul Gumuz, Gambela and the Southern Region and has been allocating large land grants between 100,000-500,000 hectares of land.

It has been reported, however, that investors have not been utilizing land allocated for investment appropriately according to sources.

The Ministry will need to re-evaluate the current status of land in the possession of investors before allocating further land for investors it was said.

Source: The Reporter