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MIDROC Construction Ethiopia and Luigi Varnero
Impresa Costruzioni Plc (Varnero) have been
short-listed for the financial tender the
state-owned Ethiopian Insurance Corporation (EIC)
issued for the construction of a 14-storey structure
at the projected cost of about 120 million Br.
Although the project was planned to start in 2003,
the 3,232sqm plot off Ras Desta Damtew Street near
Ambassador Theatre has been fenced with corrugated
tin-sheets and remained idle for years. EIC's
request to incorporate 1,389sqm of land on the
Bulbula River materialised after the Addis Abeba
Land Administration leased it to the Corporation.
Seven local contractors showed interest when the
Corporation floated a tender for the construction of
this new building on a 4,621sqm plot in May 2007.
After EIC's tender committee and the consulting
firm, Seleshi Consulting Architects and Engineering,
evaluated the technical qualifications of the seven
bidding companies, MIDROC and Varnero have been
recommended to forward their respective financial
offers, sources disclosed.
Though Mekonnen Minda, manager of promotion and
public relations department at EIC, declined to
confirm the names of the competitors and the project
cost, though he disclosed that two companies are
recommended to submit their financial offers until
mid-September 2007.
The initiation to construct the building advanced
by EIC four years ago could not go further due to
the delay to approve the design on the part of the
former Ministry of Infrastructure, now the Ministry
of Works and Urban Development (MoWUD), Mekonnen
recalled. Fortune's effort to verify the
claim from the Ministry was not successful.
Since last year, Seleshi Consulting was hired to
work on the design and supervise the construction
for 735,768 Br.
With the completion of the upcoming building, the
number of commercial buildings owned by the
Corporation would reach seven in Addis Abeba alone.
The new building would be named Hiwot House
(Life House).
Upon completion, Hiwot branch office will
move in, which is currently operating from the
ground floor of EIC's main office. Part of the
building would be rented for offices and various
other commercial activities.
The 31-year-old EIC came into being after the former
Derg regime expropriated 13 privately owned
insurance companies in 1976. However, it was in
1994, the Corporation was re-established with paid
up capital of 61 million Br.
EIC whose 11-storey headquarters found near the
railway station along Ras Mekonnen Avenue is the
largest among all commercial buildings it owns in
the metropolis. National Consultants designed this
headquarters in 1987.
EIC is the proprietor of 10 other commercial
buildings outside the capital.
Of the 68.7 million Br that EIC earned in gross
profit in the 2006/07 fiscal year, it made 37.8
million Br from the various institutional
investments' dividends, as well as from building
rents.
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