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Tafarra Dequeue Edit Profile

attorney politician

Tafarra Dequeue was a leading banker since 1961, when he was the first Ethiopian to take over expatriates in running the State Bank of Ethiopia. He was also president of the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and chairman and director of many important financial and industrial firms.

Background

Tafarra Dequeue was born on June 15, 1926, at Ankober in Shoa province of Ethiopia.

Education

He started as filing clerk with the State Bank, which sent him to Canada for further education. He went to Garbutt Business College in Calgary, Canada, in 1946 to get secretarial and accounting diplomas. A Bachelor of Commerce at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, in 1951, he switched to legal studies at Ann Arbor College and the University of Addis Ababa, where he got a law diploma and headed the class lists in 1955.

Career

He became attorney at the State Hank in Ethiopia in 1952 until he was given a government job as Director- general of Civil Aviation (1955-1957).

Rejoining the State Bank, he was Posted to Khartoum in 1957 as manager of the Sudan branch. In 1961 he was the first Ethiopian appointed general manager. The State Bank was divided into the National Bank and the Commercial Bank in 1964. He was made chief executive of the Commercial, the biggest bank in the country.

Personality

He frequently expressed his outspoken views on the economy in public speeches.