The municipality and Development of Urban Services
The municipality of Dire Dawa seems to have been one of the earliest if not
the first in the country. Although the exact date of its foundation couldn’t
be ascertained from any source available, it can safely be inferred that the
municipality was founded in the last years of the second decade of the 1900
because of two facts; as it can be discerned from the 1915 draft agreement
prepared by the company, which proposed to place the director of the company
as second in command in the administrative hierarchy of the municipality when
it is formed, thus the municipality was not founded by then. However, it indicates
that some preparations were on the making. On the other hand, it is well established
fact that by the early 1920’s most of the affairs of the city was tended
by the municipality. Therefore, the foundation of the municipality can safely
be dated between 1915 and 1920
As it was mentioned else where above, in these early days, the town was for
all practical purposes divided in to two parts physically by Dechatu river
or rather wadi, morphologically the one, Gezira, was well planned and thought
through while the other, Magala, was an offshoot of unplanned sporadic settlement
and administratively, Gezira was under the jurisdiction of the railway company
while Magala was administered by the government of Ethiopia.
Before the foundation of the town, the whole frontier region up to Dawale
including the great environ of Dire Dawa used to be administered by a governor
whose seat normally was at Jeldessa, a few km to the east of Dire Dawa. In
1902 the Governor was one Mersha Nahusenay, an educated and also French speaking
personality, who took a considerable part in the foundation of the station
and eventually of the town (Shiferaw Bekele 1987). As soon as the town was
founded he moved to Dire Dawa and continued to govern the region including
the Magala part of the town until he changed his post by being the chief of
the railway police. His successor, one Nigatu Gugsa, also seems to have continued
assuming the same position until the foundation of the municipality. These
two personalities had important role in early developmental history of the
town. For example Mersha Nahusenay was one of the key negotiators from the
Ethiopia side in the process of the agreement signed for the construction
of the railway (Shiferaw Bekele 1987).
According to informants, soon after the foundation of the municipality, the
town has got a new chief and institutional arrangement. The new chief of the
town was not a mayor rather he was an appointed director, a title that was
used commonly by the French at the time. The first appointee was called Asnake
Woldeamanuel, who organized and led it until around 1928.
Structurally the municipality was peculiarly organized in such a way that
the director was obliged to be accounted to three different authorities in
the government hierarchy: the sub provincial governor at Dire Dawa, the Enderassie
or provincial governor of Harara and finally the then regent Teferi Mekonnen.
The three authorities in turn used to medle in the works of the municipality
whenever they find it necessary or whenever it suits them (Shiferaw Bekele
1987 and informants). This, however, seems to have been advantageous for the
municipality in a way that the director wouldn’t easily be hindered
from what it planned to do by its immediate bureaucratic chain. Understandably,
access to the regent or the Emperor would give one a political leverage in
the then Ethiopian political system (Shiferaw Bekele 1987).
The director, as the highest government official in the town, governed almost
all functions of the town. The judiciary and the police force of the town
were directly below him; while the heads of the customs, the post office (the
then post and telegraph) and the treasury were used to take instructions from
him (Shiferaw Bekele 1987).
Right after it was organized it overtook the administration of the Magala
part of the town (while Gezira still remained under the company until around
1929) and assumed its normal municipal tasks like construction and maintenance
of roads, urban planning, distributing urban land, issuing title deeds that
used to be called “hoja”, collecting revenue and providing other
municipal services.
As mentioned above, the municipality got the administrative power over Gezira,
the quarter of the foreigners, only after 1928. According to some sources,
the Ethiopian government signed an accord on March 1, 1926 with the company
which contained an article that brought Gezira with all its facilities under
the jurisdiction of the Ethiopian government (Shiferaw Bekele 1987). Due to,
partly, the refusal and defiance of the white community and partly to technical
problems the transfer of the town had been delayed for more than two years.
Nevertheless, even if the unhappy white community defiantly caused a lot of
trouble to the municipality and disrupted the law and order of the town right
until the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the municipality overtook the authority.
In this respect, the Ethiopian government had been very much dismayed by
the fact that Gezira was administered by the company from the very beginning;
so it drafted a contract as early as 1903 that could have governed the lease
of land to foreigners in the town, had it been came in to effect. This clearly
shows how keen the government was to take the affairs of this part of the
town into its hands. The government tried to resist the aspirations of the
company all along to the very day of the signing of the March accord. As it
seems, an independent foreign community under the Ethiopian sky was unpalatable
to the government even if it is not clear why (Shiferaw Bekele 1987).
Be it as it may, the town for the first time became unified, at least, administratively
under the municipality and life went on further if not for the best.
School: Unlike to many of the Ethiopian towns, Dire Dawa has got more than
ten schools. The first school of the town is the one called “Alliance
Francais”, which was founded around 1908 by the French. According to
informants, this school was originally intended for the service of the French
and other members of European communities. Locals were not allowed to attend
the school. In recognition of this fact, later around 1934 the first government
school was opened. This primary school, which was called Prince Mekonnen Primary
School, began giving classes in a villa that belonged to Ras Imiru. After
two years of service, this School was closed by the Italians, who occupied
Dire Dawa in 1936 and only reopened in 1942 in one of the Italian buildings,
which used to serve as a hotel. Gradually more schools had been opened and
began rendering their services to the town. According to archival sources,
by around 1963 the number of schools in the town had already reached about
14, of which four were governmental and the remaining ten were community and
mission schools.
These schools attracted many students not only from the town but also from
the surrounding rural areas. This in turn (and the fact that no other alternative
was around Dire Dawa) necessitated the opening of a high school in 1962. This
school was originally planned and inaugurated in 1962 to be the secondary
school of Prince Mekonnen. Later during the Dergue regime it was renamed Misraqe
Jegnoch Secondary School.