Two local construction firms made the lowest offers totaling 828 million Br to construct two separate projects in Qality: a transportation terminal and a transport management & traffic safety training institute.
F.E Construction Plc, a local grade one construction company, submitted the lowest bid of 445.6 million Br to construct the Qality Transportation Terminal on a 31,000Sqm plot. The four-storey terminal will be used as a depot for transporters to the south, southeastern and eastern parts of the country. It will have offices, shops, restaurants, ticket offices and waiting rooms.
The construction of the new terminal will push the capacity of the existing terminal to 5,000 passengers a day from the current level of 1,000. The project is one of six terminals administered by the Federal Transport Authority and located at five gateways of the city: Qality, Ayer Tena, Asko, Lamberet, and the oldest, Addis Ketema.
Beha Construction Building & Water Works Contractor, also a local grade one construction company, placed the lowest offer of 382.4 million Br to build Kality Transport Management & Traffic Safety Training Institute. The institute will be comprised of an 11-storey building, as well as classrooms, offices, dormitories, a library, research centres and cafeterias that sprawls across 19ht.
The new institute will be located inside the compound of the current Drivers & Mechanics Training Centre in Qality. The institute will provide close to 10 short-term training classes in road safety, traffic management and other related fields, as well as enrolling driver trainers, transport officers, traffic police and transport control officers.
Over 60 driver and mechanic training centres currently operate in the capital with 519 training vehicles. The trainees of these centres take practical training at the four driver and mechanic training complexes located in Alem Bank, Korke, Qality and Summit areas.
The tender to hire contractors for the two projects was floated last February by the Public Procurement & Property Disposal Services on behalf of the Federal Transport Authority. The preliminary evaluation documents for the bidders were opened within six days of each other in April 2018.
For the construction of the terminal project 37 companies; and 36 firms for the construction of the institute purchased bid documents. For both projects, 12 companies passed the technical evaluation phases; and seven companies for each project proceeded to the financial evaluation phase which took five months to complete.
The process took a long time as there was a complaint lodged from one of the participants, according to Solomon Betre, chairperson of the tender committee.
China Railway No.3 Engineering, a company that was disqualified during the initial technical evaluation, lodged a complaint to the Public Procurement & Asset Disposal Complaints Review & Decision Setting Board. After reviewing the complaint of the company, the board resolved the case in favour of the Chinese firm.
The technical evaluation narrowed down the bidders to seven for each respective project. During the financial opening held early last week, the two companies submitted the lowest bids for the two projects. Bereket Endeshaw Building Construction Plc, also a local company, became the front runner for both projects, offering 478.9 million Br and 386.7 million Br for the terminal and institute, respectively.
For the terminal project Shed construction, Tekeleberhan Ambaye, Bereket Endeshaw, FE, Satcon, Tilahun Abebe and China Railway No. 3 competed with financial offers.
For the construction of the institute Lucy Engineering, Giga and Beha were added to the list that contained Bereket Endeshaw, Tilahun Abebe, China Railway No.3 and Tekleberhan Ambaye.
The two projects will be constructed under the supervision of Ethiopian Construction Design & Supervision Works Corporation, a corporation established in 2015 and that worked previously on the Ribb and Gidabo dams and designed the Akaki and Legedadi water well projects.
The Corporation was paid close to two million Birr to conduct soil survey, data collection, design, redesign and document preparation.
Experts in transport management have observed the projects approvingly. However, they caution that the project owner should consider implementing a long-term plan for the rapidly developing and expanding city.
“Integrated infrastructure development should be considered, as the city’s urbanisation growth rate has reached 4.5pc annually,” said Berhanu Zeleke (PhD), a lecturer at Kotebe Metropolitan University’s Urban Transport Management department for the past two decades.
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