Four trucks carrying heavy construction equipment for Salini Costruttori SPA have been stuck for eight days at one end of Abay Bridge, denied permission to cross to the other side by the Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA).

Loaded with a tunnel boring machine (TBM) weighing 275tns, the trucks are headed to the Beles Project in East Gojjam Zone, Amhara Regional State where the Ethiopian Power Electric Corporation (EEPCo) awarded Salini in July 2005, a 5.4 billion Br turnkey project to build the country’s largest hydroelectric dam ever, on the river of Beles, 600Km west of Addis. When completed, the dam could generate 460mw electric power.

Salini started mobilizing for the project almost as soon as the contract was signed. Heavy construction equipment, like the TBM, is an important part of the project. The machine, disassembled onto the four trucks for the journey, was imported from Italy along with the trucks.

Driving on the Ethio-Djibouti corridor, departing from the Port on June 1, 2006, the trucks had hardly any resistance before reaching Abay Bridge, although on the sixth day one of the four high-bed trucks flipped over in Serdo, 50Km east of Semera, the seat of the Afar Regional State.

Replacing the damaged truck with another rented from an Addis business woman, it took another 19 days to reach the Abay River, crossing two major bridges on the way: at Awash Arba and Modjo. The trucks were escorted by vehicles from the Ethiopian Transport Authority.

As soon as the four trucks reached the Abay river on June 25, workers from construction firm, Kajima, and members of the federal police stationed on the bridge ordered the truck drivers to stop. The Salini convoy was too heavy to cross the rickety bridge built by the Italians 57-years ago. Kajima workers were there beginning foundation work on a replacement for the older bridge, financed by the government of Japan.

The original Abay Bridge was one of three projects the government of Italy financed as a form of compensation seven years after its defeat in Ethiopia in 1942.

But despite its age and fragility, the bridge is still considered vital to the national economy, connecting the capital with the western part of the country, a breadbasket  area supplying teff and cereals. 

To some, Abay Bridge’s history supercedes questions of structural soundness or the necessity to construct a hydroelectric dam on time.

“It is a bridge made of compensation for scarifies by our fathers,” said an engineer involved in the case. “It is a price paid with blood.”

But as emotional as some get over the issue, the bridge may crack and even collapse should these trucks cross it.

“The bridge is in a fragile state even when trucks loaded with 4,500tn of fuel from Sudan passing through it,” said an expert from ERA. “It is why we have limited the frequency to only two trucks a day.”

Convinced by those strenuously against letting the trucks cross, authorities at ERA have denied Salini the permit to cross, but urge the company to find an alternative route. A series of tripartite meetings between officials from ERA, Salini and EEPCo were conducted last week, with no definitive results. The trucks were still parked close to the 145m long bridge when Fortune went to press Saturday.

Many observers are puzzled as to how the 275tn machine made it as far as it did, crossing two bridges and two scale stations in the towns of Modjo and Sululta. A regulation introduced in 1990 by the then Council of Minister (vehicle size and weight regulation 11/90) limits the total axle weight of a truck at 18tns.

“I think the fact that these trucks were escorted by vehicles from the Transport Authority made our scale station staff believe that they were authorized to pass without inspection,” said an ERA official.

An official from the Transport Authority said he had no knowledge of the Authority escorting the trucks.

Officials at ERA are afraid to repeat an incident that happened on the Gibe Bridge, in late 2004. ERA officials partly attribute the crack and eventual collapse on one side of that bridge to trucks transporting huge turbines for the Gilgel Gibe II hydropower project, undertaken by Salini. Connecting the cash-crop area around the town of Jimma and farther, the bridge was never rehabilitated. ERA awarded the rehabilitation project to a state company, Blue Nile Construction, only last week.

“We are trying to come up with a mutually acceptable solution with engineers from ERA,” said a representative from Salini, understanding of Authority’s concern.

ERA demands that Salini engineers submit a study that shows how the trucks could pass without causing damage. However, officials at ERA still strongly insist that the four trucks should head towards Addis, and continue their southwest journey along the Lekemt-Bure road, adding 2,000Km to their itinerary.

Should such decision be made, the trucks’ lack of maneuverability through the blind curves of the Abay valley is feared to take up more time than originally scheduled. The trucks are already moving at a snail’s pace; it took them six hours to finish the 22Km windy road from the town of Gohatsion to the bridge.

“Salini was awarded the project based on turn-key arrangement,” said Sendecu Araya, general manager of EEPCo’s Public Relations Office. “It is expected to deliver the job on schedule and solve any problems it may encounter in the process.”