|
Ethiopia is waiting to hear from the government of
the Netherlands whether its proposal for a grant to
buy 200 city buses has been accepted, a senior
government official at the Ministry of Transport and
Communication (MoTC) told Fortune.
The proposal was submitted last July to a grant
programme called ORIO, a competitive grant facility
for infrastructure development funded by the Dutch
Minister for Development Cooperation to encourage
public infrastructure development in developing
countries. ORIO receives proposals from various
developing countries a number of times every year
and awards money to the selected projects.
“Ethiopia had benefited from the programme twice
before. For the third time now we have applied, and
we may hear the result by December,” Atnaf Seged
Kefele, advisor to the state minister for the
Transport Sector at MoTC told Fortune. “But
it is too early to talk about it.”
ORIO provides financial support to governments in
developing countries for infrastructure projects
such as drinking water, irrigation, wastewater
management, and transport. It covers part of the
financing to enable governments to purchase the
goods, knowledge and skills they need for their
Project.
“Ethiopia’s proposal was made in a bid to address
the growing demand for transportation in Addis Abeba,”
Epherem Eshetu, deputy manager of the Addis Abeba
City Bus Enterprise told Fortune. “The
enterprise has enjoyed similar chances before and I
believe that the current proposal will be approved
soon.”
Currently, the enterprise owns 467 DAF buses, 60
Mercedes buses and eight Fiat buses, each with a
capacity of 100 passengers.
On average of 300 buses operate on a daily basis,
Epherem says. The rest have stopped due to
maintenance, partly because of a shortage of spare
parts.
The enterprise has set aside 16 million Br for spare
parts. Efrem says that seven local and international
companies have already supplied it 40pc of the spare
parts it needs adding that these parts will enable
it to repair 100 buses that are currently out of
service.
The government is also considering to purchase 200
additional city buses so as to meet the pressing
demand for public transportation in Addis Abeba, the
Deputy Manager said.
“With the growing number of commuters, the
government now believes in the idea of expanding the
enterprise,” Efrem said. “With the 400 new city
buses we are going to get, we will be able to double
our fleet-size.”
During the first Ethiopian month, from September 11
to October 10, 2009, the enterprise transported an
average of 280,483 passengers a day, falling 15pc
behind its initial target, according to Epherem .
In responses to questions posed by MPs, Deriba Kuma,
minister of Transport and Communication said on
November 5, 2009, that the government is working on
increasing the number of city buses and procuring
spare parts to mitigate the public transportation
problem in Addis Abeba. |
