Addis Abeba City Administration is changing all house numbers and street name signs and giving new numerical names to unnamed roads as part of what is going to be a 400 million Br contract to the Metal and Engineering Corporation (MetEC) to make the poles for the signs.
The changes are intended to facilitate registration of immovable properties, fire emergencies, postal services, elections, censuses, ambulances and other services, says a press statement issued during the agreement signing with MetEC for the first phase of manufacturing the metal poles and plates.
Addis Abeba needs a modern address system, said the press statement, as it is the capital of Ethiopia and Africa and the seat of many diplomatic missions as well as a conference tourism venue. The address system for Addis Abeba has been selected to be the street address system, which is preferable to implement a navigation system, it said.
This is not the first time that an attempt has been made to modernize the address system in Addis Abeba. There was one in 2003, but it was not significant because the street names were not coordinated with house numbers. Then in 2008 the Coordinated Land Information System Project Coordination Office was established in the Addis Abeba City Administration, with one of its jobs being implementing a modern address system. The office hired Hansa Luftbild Group, a German geo-information consultancy firm, which did a pilot project in two weredas in the Bole and Nefas Silk Lafto districts.
A decision was made in 2012 to turn the project office into one of the departments under the Integrated Land Information Centre for better efficiency. It then participated in the preparation of the national address system standard that was developed by the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing Construction (MoUDHC). This, however, led to a delay in the implementation of the address system of Addis Abeba because of differences with what was already undertaken as a pilot in the city, according to the press statement.
The project office had started working on what was called the metric system, but it had to be changed into a sequential system in 2013. The following year, the city produced address maps for 10 weredas, out of a plan to make maps, road blocks, and house numbers for 40 weredas. The remaining 30 weredas have now been identified, according to the statement, and work is already underway to assign block numbers and house numbers.
The city expects to spend 400 million Br for the production of signposts and plates it will use for directions as well as for block and house numbers. The agreement signed with the MetEC on March 10, 2015, for the making, transporting and installing of the signposts and number plates for 10 woredas is worth 38 million Br. The work will involve 46,841 new house numbers and 4,500 poles, according to Assake Kawefa, operations head at the Integrated Land Information Centre.
The centre has assigned 10 of its staff to the project, with districts assigning four to five people.
The city is producing a new directive as changing house numbers will affect residents’ ID numbers and could have implications on various documents, including courts, Assake said.
The agreement was made between Mesfin Seyoum (Capt.), deputy general manager and sales marketing head at MetEC and Sahile Fersha, director general of ILIC at Addis Regency Hotel, Benin Street.
“We will launch the project as soon as we receive 30pc of the total cost as a down payment from the centre,” said Mesfin.
MetEC will pass 60pc of the work to five small and micro enterprises working with it. Local companies will do the production of plates and poles while MetEC will make aluminium plates that will help the signs to be visible at night, Mesfin said.
The address system will be based on the cadastral map taken by the Hansa Luftbild Group that undertook an aerial survey photographing roads, boundaries and houses in Addis Abeba.
The project has two parts; one is the physical erection of poles with all information and the second part is the navigation work, which will see all the information being available online.
The total project, which will cover the all of the districts in Addis Abeba, is expected to be finalized within two years.
The existing street names will be incorporated with the upcoming system. It was when the Organization of African Union (OAU) was disbanded and replaced by the African Union (AU) in 2002 that the then administration of the city officially named most of its streets after African countries; although there were some streets named after African countries prior to this date.
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