The Addis Ababa City Transport Bureau says 44.5 percent of vehicles checked in a random emission inspection failed to meet environmental standards, with diesel-powered vehicles responsible for the large majority of failures. The bureau disclosed the results during an awareness-raising event on vehicle emissions and ways to reduce them, according to EthiopiaToday. The checks were carried out in the first quarter of the fiscal year.
Of the 200 vehicles tested, 111 ran on gasoline and 89 on diesel. Among the gasoline vehicles, 101 passed. Among the diesel vehicles, only 13 passed.
Why it matters
The figures suggest that failing emission checks in the Ethiopian capital are common rather than exceptional, and that the problem is concentrated in one segment of the fleet. Diesel vehicles made up less than half of the sample but accounted for most of the failures, according to the bureau's breakdown as reported by EthiopiaToday.
The bureau warned that vehicle smoke is adding to serious risks for public health and the environment. It said it will move to stricter regulation and enforcement against operators whose vehicles do not comply.
Age is not the deciding factor, official says
Girma Samuel, Director of Non-Motorized Transport Expansion at the bureau, said a vehicle's age on its own does not determine how much it pollutes. In his view, how well a vehicle is maintained and handled is what decides its emission levels.
That distinction matters for how the problem is addressed. If older vehicles were automatically the worst offenders, the policy response would center on scrapping or replacing them. Girma Samuel's position points instead toward upkeep and day-to-day handling of vehicles as the area where results could change.
The bureau has not said publicly how it will apply that view in practice, and it did not announce specific penalties in the reporting summarized by EthiopiaToday.
A small sample with a clear pattern
The inspection covered 200 vehicles chosen at random, a small share of the traffic on Addis Ababa's roads. The results are a snapshot from a single quarter rather than a full audit of the city's fleet, and the bureau has not indicated whether it plans to publish further rounds of testing.
Even so, the split between fuel types is stark. Roughly nine in ten gasoline vehicles passed, while fewer than one in six diesel vehicles did. The bureau's warning about smoke and health follows directly from that gap.
What the bureau does next on enforcement is the point to watch, along with whether later inspections show the pass rate moving.
