Thursday April 19, 2018
FILE PHOTO: Ethiopia's newly elected prime minister Abiy Ahmed attends a rally during his visit to Ambo in the Oromiya region, Ethiopia April 11, 2018. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri/File Photo
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia’s new prime minister named a cabinet on Thursday that includes the former mining minister as defense minister and retains the finance and foreign ministers from his predecessor’s cabinet.
Abiy Ahmed, who was appointed by Ethiopia’s ruling coalition last month and sworn in as prime minister on April 2, made the announcement on state television.
“I am requesting parliament to ratify the reshuffle of six ministers and the new appointment of 10 others,” Ahmed, a former army officer, said. The remaining ministers from the previous cabinet, including finance and foreign affairs, were unchanged.
Every lawmaker in the 547-seat parliament is from the ruling EPRDF coalition, so the cabinet is expected to be ratified by the assembly.
Ethiopia’s economy has officially grown at an average of nearly 10 percent for the past decade, the fastest in Africa, but political unrest in the country of 100 million people led to the sudden resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in February.