The Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA) has made a bold move by awarding two local firms contracts for construction of asphalt roads in Ethiopia. This is a first for Ethiopia local contractors to be awarded road asphalting projects from scratch since they were previously involved in building gravel roads or upgrading gravel roads to asphalt.
The two contractors awarded the road construction projects are Sunshine Construction Plc and Macro General Contractor Trading Plc. The road construction projects will be conducted at a cost of US$ 110m.
Sunshine Construction Plc will be given US$ 50m for the construction of the 60.8-km Morocho-Dimtu-Bitena road. After the successful completion of this phase within 2 years and 5 months, another 48.3 km of road will be constructed by a Chinese contractor, Hunan Hunda at a cost of US$ 55m.
Macro General Contractor Trading Plc will receive US$ 63m for construction of the 100-km Adaba-Angetu road in Oromia. The road will be ready for use in three years.
To date the ERA has rehabilitated, upgraded, constructed and maintained 41,664 km of roads as of June 2013, at a cost of US$ 4.1bn, of which US$ 3bn was on federal roads..
