The Ethiopian Roads Authority is seeking 650 million US dollars from the African Development Bank. The authority, headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, plans to use the money to finalize the Road Sector Development Program by 2015.
The authority plans to utilize 350 million US dollars of the money it acquires from the African bank on five new projects.
The roads authority has utilized an estimated 80 billion birr on road improvement projects since 1997. Most of the financing for the upgrade projects was funded by external sources including the World Bank, the Chinese government, the European Union and the African Development Bank.ERA has awarded 765 contracts so far in the Road Sector Development Program with 469 contracts going to local organizations. The monetary of civil contracts to local firms is estimated at 30.4 billion birr while consultant services netted 1.8 billion birr.
The RSD program has constructed an estimated 58 thousand Kilometers of roads including federal and regional roads making up 91% of target goals at 97% of the expected cost it was said.
Additional roads were rehabilitated and upgraded.
The total road network has grown from 26,550 Km- 53,997 Km increasing the road density from 24.1 to 49.09 Kilo meters per 1000 square meters and 0.47 to 0.66 Kilo meters per 1,000 population.
Source: Capital
