In January 2012, on a visit to Seattle, the CEO of ECX held a two and one half hour
conversation with Mr. Wondwossen regarding the functioning of the Exchange and its impact
on coffee farmers. During this conversation, Mr. Wondwossen raised the issue of an IT
procurement of software, citing a complaint raised by a bidder based in South Africa. In
response, the CEO gave a thorough explanation to Mr. Wondwossen on this matter, to the
effect that the bid had been cancelled by the World Bank in early December 2010 after
confirmation of a technical error made by the bid evaluation committee in the counting of the
days of validity of the bid bond security following a bidder’s complaint. The CEO explained to
Mr. Wondwossen that the bid approval procedure involved four layers of controls with an
extensive review period over nearly six months. The bid evaluation report submitted by the
ECX technical committee was thoroughly evaluated and approved by the procurement unit of
the World Bank country office in Addis Ababa, then approved by the World Bank project
leader in Addis Ababa, then submitted for extensive review by the World Bank IT
procurement office in Washington. Over the period between July and end November 2010,
over 30 technical queries were raised by the World Bank procurement evaluation team
composed of some five World Bank experts in both Washington and Addis Ababa engaged in
the review of this bid, on all aspects of the procurement process, including approving
adjustments of several bid amounts for total costs omitted in the posted bid price. It is
unfortunate that, due to the extension of the bid submission date by one month at the
request of the bidders, the fact that the bid security validity period of one of the bidders had
not been extended by the requisite additional 30 days was overlooked during this process.
This was a minor technicality in comparison to the complex parameters evaluated in great
scope throughout this very detailed and careful process. Nonetheless, upon discovery of the
oversight, the World Bank immediately canceled the award because no other bidder was
considered responsive by its standards. As also informed to Mr. Wondwossen, while the bid
in question was canceled, the World Bank project has continued and ECX is now successfully
nearing the completion of the disbursement of funds for IT procurements under this project,
intended to upgrade and extend the functionality of ECX’s trading system in the coming years.
As explained to Mr. Wondwossen, while the CEO was not at liberty to comment directly on
investigations being conducted by other organizations, the fact that both the World Bank and
the Prime Minister’s Office had conducted full investigations in 2011 is well known. Suffice to
say that the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange submitted more than 1,500 pages of material in
the form of documents, correspondence, emails, and other evidence to the Investigation
Committee over a period of four months.
Furthermore, as also explained to Mr. Wondwossen, the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange took
the initiative to approach the Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission in early 2011 to
engage its expertise in helping to address concerns by market actors about rising corruption
by those in the market who were engaged in offering bribes to ECX employees in the
sampling and grading of commodities in warehouse sites around the country. This
collaborative engagement between the Commission and ECX is what gave rise to the report
on its activities submitted by the Commission.
It is unfortunate that Mr. Wondwossen Mezlekia, in his zeal to help Ethiopian coffee farmers,
has overstepped the boundaries of factual and honest commentary in his recent posting on
this matter. It is also important to note that while he reveals those who did not provide
comment on this matter, he omits to provide the truth of the extensive and open dialogue
held with the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange itself. This conduct cannot be seen as
particularly helpful to anyone, least of all the farmers themselves.
