March 4, 2012
DURAME — Recently, the Ethiopian regime has been spreading misinformation about a 99-floor building proposal in Addis Ababa through social networking sites and websites loyal to the regime. According to report being circulated around the web, the proposed hotel tower will be a project developed by the Guangdong Chuan Hui Group (GCHG) and will consist of 99 floors and rise to a total height of 448 meters. Despite the report being described as a 'press release', no such press release was issued by the Chinese company in question. Strangely enough, the tower renderings used with this report was made by Lifang, a Chinese website that specializes in architectural visualization that has no connection to Ethiopia or GCHG.
If the story sounds too fishy, it should. This isn't the first time Ethiopians have been hoodwinked by the corrupt Ethiopian regime. In 2010, a similar 'press release' was presented through the same unofficial backdoor channels that claimed the GCHG had started construction on a 58-floor hotel tower in Addis Ababa that was later found out to be fabricated. In that press release, a Shanghai hotel building was used as the rendering for that report, which explains why the letters of the hotel tower were made in Chinese instead of Amharic (see second picture below).
The fact is, most of the development the government says it will build never materializes. Even the buildings it manages to complete usually fall short of international safety standards and have been described as being 'ugly steel-and-glass tower blocks' by western journalists. Unfortunately for the regime, adding 40 more floors to a lie originally created in 2010 doesn't make it true.This rehashed pie in the sky hotel tower is just another fabrication intended for political consumption.
DURAME — Recently, the Ethiopian regime has been spreading misinformation about a 99-floor building proposal in Addis Ababa through social networking sites and websites loyal to the regime. According to report being circulated around the web, the proposed hotel tower will be a project developed by the Guangdong Chuan Hui Group (GCHG) and will consist of 99 floors and rise to a total height of 448 meters. Despite the report being described as a 'press release', no such press release was issued by the Chinese company in question. Strangely enough, the tower renderings used with this report was made by Lifang, a Chinese website that specializes in architectural visualization that has no connection to Ethiopia or GCHG.
If the story sounds too fishy, it should. This isn't the first time Ethiopians have been hoodwinked by the corrupt Ethiopian regime. In 2010, a similar 'press release' was presented through the same unofficial backdoor channels that claimed the GCHG had started construction on a 58-floor hotel tower in Addis Ababa that was later found out to be fabricated. In that press release, a Shanghai hotel building was used as the rendering for that report, which explains why the letters of the hotel tower were made in Chinese instead of Amharic (see second picture below).
The fact is, most of the development the government says it will build never materializes. Even the buildings it manages to complete usually fall short of international safety standards and have been described as being 'ugly steel-and-glass tower blocks' by western journalists. Unfortunately for the regime, adding 40 more floors to a lie originally created in 2010 doesn't make it true.This rehashed pie in the sky hotel tower is just another fabrication intended for political consumption.
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| A tower designed by Chinese company Lifang is used in latest 99-floor Ethiopian hotel fabrication |
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| Chinese rendering used in the original 2010 58-floor hotel in Addis Ababa |