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Septic tanks adjoined to buildings constructed for military hostels
have spilled into five classrooms at the former Teferi Makonnen
School, located on Algeria road, on the way from Sidist Kilo
to Shiro Meda.
The contents of
the septic tanks that overflowed into the Entoto Technical and
Vocational Education and Training College (ETVET), seeped into five
classrooms, forcing the School to close them indefinitely. In
addition, three nearby classes were closed because of the horrible
stench coming from the flooded rooms.
Although the
odour from overflowing septic tanks started drifting into the
classrooms in January 2006, the flood into the school, which
occurred through holes in the wall made by the spill, did not take
place until school started last month.
The Dean of ETVET,
Dereje Belachew, told Fortune that the College Administration
had decided to move over 400 students and reassign them to other
classes.
The four,
eight-storey buildings that were constructed for the Ministry of
Defence as hostels for top officers on a field named after General
Mulugeta Buli, was built by Sunshine Construction Plc, which started
building the edifices in August 2001, concluding construction two
years later for 43 million Br.
The Head of the
construction company’s Business Development and Public Relation
Service, Dagnamyelew Girma, told Fortune that the contractors
had been worried that the reservoir was in fact not of a sufficient
size to hold the volume sewerage.
“At the time, the
consulting firm had told us to go on with our work, so we did and
commissioned the building,” he said.
Dagnamyelew said
that his company cannot be held responsible for the septic tanks’
spill.
The consulting
body, Construction Design Enterprise S.C (CDESCo), said that it had
predicted this to happen.
“The party to be
blamed is the owner of the building,” Director of CDESCo Contract
Administration Department, Semere Mengistu stated.
“Because there is
a shortage of land in the area, there was not space to install
enough septic tanks. We had suggested that alternative dumping
methods be looked into at the time,” he said.
Semere disclosed
that the client had said that the matter would be addressed in the
future and that they should do what they could.
Officer residents
and their families at the apartments told Fortune that they
had gotten the tanks emptied by five sewerage trucks, but that
unfortunately this had not prevented the tanks from spilling over.
The Ministry of
Defence’s Project Office, which operates the building, had
approached the Addis Abeba Water and Sewerage Authority about
solving the problem by agreeing to install a sewerage line and
hiring a contractor for 1.2 million Br. But because it never
received a permit from the Authority, the contractor refused to
begin work, a resident at the apartment told Fortune.
“Our children are
the ones going to school here and we do not want them to suffer,” he
said. “We have to try hard to resolve this problem.”
The Dean of the
College has confirmed that their neighbours have in fact been doing
their best in trying to solve the problem.
“Instead of
accusing them, which does make any sense since they are trying to
help us, we are going to try to find a solution to the problem
together,” the Dean said.
Officials from
the Project Office at the Ministry of Defence were unavailable for
comment.
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