Ethiopian Roads Authority has been successful in 80 percent of its plan for the first half of the current fiscal year 2020/21; to this end the authority was planning to oversee signage of around 33 road projects with contractors over the stated period.
According to Director General of the Ethiopian Roads Authority, Habtamu Tegegne (Eng), lack of inputs, instability in the country and right offs, have been challenges faced by the authority in its operation which has made it slightly impaired in achieving a hundred percent success.
As Habtamu said in the first six months of the current fiscal year, the authority has signed a contract for the construction of 21 road projects in different parts of the country with a total cost of 69 billion birr. On Wednesday February 3, 2021, the authority has signed agreements with various contractors for the construction of 8 roads with a total length of 738.19 km at a cost of 18.2 billion birr. Of the total cost, seven of the projects are covered by the government of Ethiopia. Out of the eight road construction projects, five of them are awarded to local construction companies as it stands.
According to the information obtained from the authority, 14 road projects were awarded to local contractors while the other 7 projects were taken by international contractors. 20 of the projects are financed by the government whereas the remaining will be covered by grants and loans from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), African Development Bank, World Bank and some contribution from the Ethiopian Government. Among the road projects that connect to the neighboring country are; Andeslassie-Rama – Gerehu Senai to Eritrea, Durbete-Kunzla-Metema to Sudan and Negele Borena-Melkassu with Kenya and Somalia.
Currently, the authority has 253 projects, in which 187 of them are active projects. Until the end of the current fiscal year the authority is planning to undergo 117 road projects with approximately 500 billion birr. From these 117 projects, the authority has signed contract with local and international contractors for the construction of 21 road projects, while according to the director 13 new contracts are expected to soon be signed. Of the total projects, 67 of them have started the processes of auction to their construction, 8 are on auction review, 20 on the auction process, and 4 on the designing phase and for 9 projects the authority is on process to hire designing advisors.
According to the director, the authority is preparing a new master plan to accelerate its operation, “The new master plan combined with new regulations and directives will crack the gap for the existing plan,” the engineer elaborated.