2merkato

The Ethiopian Roads Authority revealed plans to construct and repair 2216 kilometers of roads this financial year. The road construction and repair program is expected to cost an estimated 8 billion birr.

More than 1022 kilometers of the total road program will consist of new road construction according to Samson Wondimu Communications Director for the Roads Authority.

The road projects are intended to foster closer market links across the country as well as reducing the cost of transport and the time required for farmers to transport their produce to markets he said.

The current program is also designed to take into account the needs of emerging states to ensure equitable development across the nation explain Samson.

The Ethiopian Roads Authority is set to implement a five year ‘Bridge Improvement Master Plan’ to help archive information on bridges and to register the standard of service in the country.

The project is expected to cost above 394 million birr according to Samson Wondimu, Head of Public Relations with the authority.

About 20 million birr has been allocated for the construction and maintenance of bridges in this fiscal year he said.

The Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA) revealed plans to begin constructing three new axle load control on trunk roads and replacing eleven others with new ones in February with the money granted by Japanese government.

The bid put out by the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority has received interest from IT companies, four of which presented financial and technical proposal for evaluation.

The bid is for the installation a single window system for the tax authority comprising of a single access for request and communication of documents required for clearance, for both importers and exporters offering synchronized service by government institutions.

This single window system, if installed by ERCA, will replace the current manual system in the office which is slow.

The Federal tax structure of Ethiopia has collected 22.2 billion birr in the first quarter according to source with the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority. The revenue raised from federal taxes in the first quarter is higher than the 21.5 billion birr projected by the authority for the reporting period.

The revenue collected at the federal level this quarter makes up 22% of the 101 billion birr that the authority has targeted to collect in the current financial year.

The federal taxation system includes income from customs and duties, domestic taxes and the national lottery system. The national lottery and customs contributed less than anticipated amounts of revenue according to sources.