Agencies Tangle Stalls Road, Sub-station Projects

An overlap of jurisdiction between two city agencies has triggered a conflict between Ethiopian Electric Power and Addis Abeba City Roads Authority. It is feared that the confrontation between the two may result in a delay on the project and another cost overrun.

The conflict involves the Roads Authority’s 83 million Br project between Ras Abebe Aregay Street and Dej Wolde Mikael Street. The road project, which is subcontracted to a local company called Aser Construction Plc, is nine percent completed. The project is expected to ease the traffic congestion around Mexico Square.

The project involves the construction of a road 640m in length and 30m in width with two lanes. It also includes a 4.5m wide walkway. Moreover the project also contains a designated area that will become a taxi station. Completion of construction was planned for October 8 and was also supposed to begin earlier, in September. To date the project was meant to reach 67pc completion by late October.

Just after Aser began the construction EEP began to fence off an area near the project. The fenced area unfortunately took up a two to three meter plot of land from the road project.

EEP was fencing off land for the construction of a substation. In addition to the plot it took, EEP has also demanded a buffer zone between the road project and the substation.

“I don’t think given the current status of the project it could be possible to modify our plan,” Daniel Assefa (Eng.), a representative of CORE Consultant Plc, that is looking after the project told Fortune.

“Unfortunately, EEP has not responded to requests to look into the autocad [2D or 3D] designs of their project so we could at least look for possible solutions,” Daniel added.

The Roads Authority claims that it got approval for its plan from the Master Plan Institute last year.

Following the overlap between the two projects, city officials made a site visit and gave both institutions directions to resolve their problem.

The area where the construction is taking place belongs to Lideta District, which has been informed of the problem.

“Yes, we are aware of the problem,” said Birhanu Kebede, head of the district’s Land Management office. He decline to comment further on the issue saying it is still in the early stages of discussion.

The site consultant attributed the under performance to delays in dealing with utility provider offices including Addis Abeba Water Sewerage Authority.

Lack of coordination among agencies, especially public utility providers, has been a problem for road projects in the past. All these issues have direct implications on the cost of planned projects. Last year it was reported that there were 23 projects that have been delayed for over a year for this reason.

The contested project is expected to be finalised by November 27.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.