The Ethiopian Road Authority has signed an agreement with ten contractors for the construction of 12 road projects with a total cost of 20 billion birr.
The twelve road projects with a combined road length of 825.23 km will be completed between 18 months to four years.
The Ethiopian government will cover the cost of constructing ten roads while a loan from the World Bank, amounting to 3.47 billion birr, covers the rest two.
Out of the inked 12 projects, seven will be built by seven local contractors while the five projects were awarded to four Chinese companies.
Fal General Contractor, Amahara Road Works Enterprise, Kibish Construction, Samson Cherenet General Contractor will each build one road while the Ethiopia Construction Corporation will embark on the construction of two roads. Powercon and Asser Construction will jointly construct one road.
The four international companies, Shandong Luqiao Group, China-Wu Yi, Jingzi II Construction Corporation, Chon King International Construction, will build the remaining five roads. Shandong was awarded two projects totaling 3.46 billion birr.
The Yaso-Chagni is the longest and most expensive of the twelve projects. The 117.4 km road that is going to be built by China-Wu Yi will cost 2.7 billion birr.
On the other hand, Debere Tabor-Guna design and build project is shortest one covering 11.02 km. The road which will be built by Samson Cherenet General Contractor at a cost of 416 million birr is also the cheapest one out of the twelve.
The roads with a width between eight to ten meters will have pedestrian sidewalks and drainage systems.
Just last month, the Authority has also awarded various road projects with a combined length of 1,022 km for nine companies at a total cost of 25.8 billion birr.
In the last fiscal year that just ended, the Authority signed a total of 30 projects while 15 projects were finalized, and 21 projects were entirely handed over.
The latest agreements are the first to be signed in the new fiscal year of 2020-2021. The Authority is currently administering 157 projects with a total cost of 195 billion birr.
