Fikremariam Tesfaye
13 August 2009
Addis Ababa — Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA) allocates a budget of over 11.2 billion birr for the construction of 2026 kilometer road. The work includes construction, rehabilitation, and upgrading of the country's major highways, bridge construction, feasibility study, environmental impact assessment and design study as well as capacity building in the 2009-2010 budget year.
The budget will be obtained from the national treasury, loan and aid as well as from the regular government budget amounting to 65.8 million birr.
Back in the 1990s, the Government of Ethiopia recognized that a major expansion of the national road network was essential to meet its development goals. Accordingly, it formulated the 10-year Road Sector Development Program (RSDP 1997-2007), which is a two-phased integrated package of investments, reforms, and institutional re-organization. The program was later extended to include a third phase covering the period up to the end of June 2010.
"Eleven years after phase I of the roads project, and now through the implementation of phase II and III, there have been remarkable changes in Ethiopia's road conditions and ERA invests over 35 billion birr," said Samson Wondimu, ERA Information and Public Relations Service Head at the press conference held at his office on Wednesday.
During phase I, 8,709 km of road was constructed or rehabilitated. The first two components of the project alone made it possible to upgrade the country's major connectors, including the Modjo-Awash-Gewane-Mille road (442 km) on the import-export corridor, and the Awash-Hirna-Kulubi-Dire Dawa-Harar road (311 km), a gateway to the eastern part of the country.
Phase II included the rehabilitation of 988 km of road, upgrading work for 1,758 km, and the construction of 628 km of new gravel roads. And, as of September 2008, heavy or emergency maintenance work was done on 4,199 km of asphalt and gravel roads, and some 70,000 km of community roads were constructed.
According to recent World Bank report, other highlights of the project include: the six-fold increase in annual road fund revenues; growth of local contractors share in the annual contracts to 58 percent in 2008; smaller transport tariffs and less travel time reported by rural populations; an increase in income opportunities for women from labor-based work and a smaller domestic transport burden; and a wider range of alternative income and diversification of agriculture, translating to higher prices for commercial sales of agricultural produce and decreased agricultural inputs, it said.
The World Bank's first contribution to Ethiopia Road Sector Development Program was in the form of an International Development Association credit of US$309.2 million (1998-2005), which was followed by an Adoptable Program Lending of US$845 million in four stages (2004-1016). The Bank, with other donors, has provided grants and credits to the program since 1998. So far, total Bank support is over $1.1 billion.
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