The Addis Abeba Water and Sewerage Authority (AAWSA) Water and Sewerage Development and Rehabilitation Project office has completed and availed two ground water sources and expansion of Legedadi and Dire dams that are to be inaugurated on Sunday March 8, 2015.
The first of these projects is Akaki well field, which can generate 70,000 cubic meters of water a day. The project, undertaken with financial support of 1.8 billion Br from the Chinese ExIm bank, has a total of 24 water wells. The project also included 266.3Km of main line installation, 10.5Km distribution line installation, 25.8Km of collection lines. It also included construction of six water tankers that have the capacity of holding from 1,000 cubic meters of water to 5,000 cubic meters of water.
This project has enabled one million people to get adequate water supply by bringing 100,000 cubic meters of water into the system.
The project was contracted to CGC Overseas Construction Co. Ltd, a Chinese state owned Construction Company that has been involved in water and road works in Africa.
CGC Overseas has been operating in Ethiopia since 2003. It has so far completed five projects, which include a 22Km asphalt road from Chole to Magna, the Dodola Junction to Goba road and the Dera to Gololcha Mechara road, all in the Oromia region, as well as a road project from Kombolcha to Mekaneselam.
Recently, it was awarded a 220Km asphalt road construction that will stretch from Dire Dawa to Dewalle, for which it will be paid 3.99 billion Br.
The governmental Water Works Design & Control Enterprise did the supervision of the project.
The second project was the expansion of two previously used dams – Legedadi and Dire dams,increased their joint capacity by 30,000 cubic meters of water a day on their existing joint capacity of 165 cubic meters a day. It has benefitted 300,000 users.
“A recent study indicates that the current demand of the city is 670,000 cubic meters of water a day; our supply still stands at 498,000 cubic meters a day,” said Tesfalem Bayu, the Project Offices head.
Fourteen thousand cubic meters of water was let into the system from different pocket area wells that were constructed in places that could not benefit from the new expansions and projects, according to him. This happened because of the limitation of the scope of the new projects.
In order to overcome the disparity between the demand and supply of water in the city, the project office is processing other projects that can let additional water supply to the system.
One of these projects is Akaki water well, which is expected to be completed by June 2015. This project is expected to let 70,000 cubic meters of water into the system and currently, it has reached 96pc completion with the remaining works being electromechanical and network installation works, Tesfalem said.
Another project in Legedadi is also expected to join the system with 40,000 cubic meters of water a day within two months’ time and it is said to benefit up to 400,000 users. Twenty water wells will also be drilled in pocket areas in the short run.
As a long-term plan, the project office is working on the study and design of Legedadi phase two, which will generate 86,000 cubic meters of water by itself.
Gerbi and Sibilu dams are also parts of the plan that can generate 73,000 cubic meters and 428 cubic meters of water a day, respectively. The former is said to take three years for construction and the latter four to five years.
In order to solve the distribution and quality problems, the office has established a customer forum that meets four times a year and discusses the problems thoroughly. The workers are also given phones through which the customers can notify problems related to cuts which allow the workers go to the place and fix any problems.
“Regarding the quality issue, the water that we let into the network contains chlorine so that it can be able to resist any contamination,” said Fekadu Zeleke, AAWSA’s water supply and distribution deputy manager. “We are also working on having high powered generators to avoid water cuts in case of electricity shortage.”
The projects that are completed are set to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn.
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