The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX), which is under massive reform, lost its two top management members a few weeks after the resignation of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Belay Gorfu is assigned as acting CEO of ECX as of Tuesday.

Early this week the board of directors of ECX that was chaired by Sani Redi, Director General of the recently reformed Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Development and Marketing Authority, has appointed the acting CEO for the commodity market replacing Ermias Eshetu, who served for more than two and half years.

The board has also accepted the resignation of Mekru Dembi, former head of Ethiopian Agriculture Commodities Warehousing Service Enterprise, which spun-off from ECX for two years and remerged as of the current budget year, and current deputy CEO of Quality and Warehouse Operation at ECX, and Mehateme Kebede, Chief Human Resource Officer of ECX, on Tuesday September 26.

Sources said that since the remerging of ECX and Warehousing Service Enterprise both Ermias and Mekru have been put forth by the remerging committee as candidates for the assignment of the CEO post. Ermias has been assigned as acting CEO of ECX after the two bodies remerged.

The resignation is unexpected since Mekru is considered as a potential CEO for the trading floor, which is facilitating a modern trading platform for traders that transacts billions of birr every year.

Mekru, who joined ECX from its formation at the management position, has ample experience in the trading scheme. “The resignation is unexpected,” experts at the trading floor told Capital.

Mekru told Capital that he left the organization for personal reasons.

“There is a new reform that is being undertaken at the ECX that I believe needs young and energetic professionals,” he said.

The Chief Human Resource Officer also told Capital that he decided to leave the exchange for his own personal reasons.

Mehateme said that he wants to experience new opportunities and challenges and declined to further comment.

Mehateme served as Chief Human Resource Officer since February 2014.

On Tuesday the board has also assigned Belay Gorfu, Chief Finance Officer of ECX as acting CEO of the commodity exchange.

The ECX board that comprises of government officials and private actors has assigned Merga Baisa on the place of Mekru as deputy CEO of Quality and Warehouse Operation.
Since the reform at the trading floor several achievements have been registered on the first two months of the budget year, according to experts.

The trading scheme particularly the coffee trading has received significant change and improvement. The government has been undertaking several reforms to improve the trading of some major export commodities. The reform has already been implemented on coffee, which is the major hard currency source for the country. Experts said that the new system has changed some of the trading scheme including identity preserved and on consignment trading, while the bean arrived at the trading bonded yards.

ECX was established in 2008 to modernize the commodity trading with computerized scheme.