The Country’s Road Authority picked two companies Sunshine Constriction and Daewoo Engineering to clean up the mess created by the failure of two international companies to start projects they had been awarded.
Sunshine will take over construction of the Ankober-Dolecha 40km road project while the consulting part will be done by Dawi Germany and Zewde Eskinder (Eng). It signed the contract for the total payment of 858 million Br.
The latest award for Sunshine has came following the Authority’s decision to cancel the first bid in 2013 even though it had already been awarded to an Indian company called Vill Ltd. However the company failed to come up with its bid security document, forcing a re-tender of the bid.
Companies such as Sur Construction Plc, Gemshu Beyene Construction and DMC are competitors in the most recent bid.
Sunshine was the first local company to enjoy a contract from the Authority to construct a full asphalt road project two years ago.
The contract for the Morocho-Dimtu-Bitena road was signed with the longstanding head of the Authority, Zaid Woldegebriel. Last week’s contract was signed by Zaid’s successor Araya Girmay.
Sunshine is the giant behind various road projects including Yabello–Teltele, 99.5Km in Southern Ethiopia; Bambasi-Tongo, 70 Km in Benshangul; and Butajira–Gubre, 82 Km two hours south-west of Addis.
The new road Sunshine committed to will have be 19m wide in towns and seven metres wide in rural areas. Sunshine agreed to complete the project in less than three years. Upon completion the road will connect to the Addis-Djibouti road through Dessie, reducing the distance by 225Km.
The second project rescued was by Daewoo Engineering, from its compatriot, Kengnam, both Korean Companies.
The Meki-Ziway 37Km project is the part of Modjo-Hawassa Expressway; the Authority awarded the first section, Modjo-Meki, in November, 2015. Three months later the next section, Meki-Ziway was awarded to Daewoo build a 37Km, four-lane highway.
The South Korean Daewoo Engineering, will complete the project for 82 million dollars. The Ethiopian government secured 100 million dollar loan from the Seoul government-run Economic Development Cooperation Fund back in 2014 to fund this section of the expressway. The loan will be repaid within 40 years after a 15 year grace period.
This same section was awarded to Keangnam Enterprise Ltd. However following a controversy over Keangnam’s financial situation back in Seoul, the Authority snatched away the award and re-tendered the bid for procurement. Keangnam, which is said to be bankrupt, at that time had offered somewhere around 107 million dollars.
Daewoo will be consulted by four consulting companies; Kunhuwa Consulting and Dongill Engineering, foreign companies and local companies Ethio Infra Engineering Plc and Core Consulting Plc.
The contractor has committed to complete and hand over the project in three and quarter years, by June 2019.
The day following the award of those two contracts, the Authority also announced the completion of the Dejene-Debremarkos, 69.5Km road project. The road which was contracted by Kajima Corporation, a Japan-based contractor, cost 2.2 billion Br and was built with financing by the Japanese government. The road width extends from 10m to 19m and the project included 11 bridges of different sizes.
For convenience the company divvied up the project into two contracts, first a 29.5km stretch from Dejene to Lumamea, involved upgrading the road to asphalt concrete. While the second contract is a 40Km long road from Lumamea to Debremarkos. This specific contract alone has seven bridges, five box culverts and 107 drainage pipes.
Completion of the road is expected to accommodate increased traffic, now at a level of 16,000 vehicles per a day. It will also contribute to facilitation of the grain trade, teff in particular.
During the first Growth & Development Plan (GTP I), the country increased road density by 1,000sqkm, increased from 44Km per 1,000sqKm to 109Km per 1,000sqKm by the year 2014/15. It aims to reach coverage of 200Km per 1,000sqKm by the end of the GTP II.
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