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The 500Km power transmission line installaation
project from Alamata, Amhara Regional State, through
Kombolcha to Kaliti, was delayed by two years due to
financial constraints. Kalpataru, headquartered in
Western Indian, had signed a contractual agreement
with the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo)
on September 1, 2007, with a project cost of 21
million dollars.
The project could not be launched yet as Kalpataru
failed to bring the financiers, sources at EEPCo
told Fortune. The publicly listed company has
a net worth of over 150 million dollars and an
annual turnover of 365 million dollars as a part of
the Kalpataru Group also involved in real estate and
trading.
According to the terms of the agreement, the Indian
Company is required to solicit and acquire a
financier.
"EEPCo could not agree with the financier we
brought," P.S. Kumar, the company's project office
manager told Fortune. He added, therefore,
that the company has solicited another Indian Bank,
ICI, which is interested to finance the project and
negotiations are underway between the Corporation
and the Bank.
"We are negotiating with the financier and hopefully
an agreement will be reached and the project
launched," Mihiret Debebe, general manager of EEPCo,
told Fortune.
After the signing of the contractual agreement,
Kalpataru opened a project office in Ethiopia, one
of the seven countries in Africa it is engaged in
and 24 worldwide. Nonetheless, without finalising
the project at hand, the company has yet again
signed another contractual agreement to install a
210Km 230Kv-transmission line from Dire Dawa to
Djibouti at a project cost of 197 million Br.
The company has also signed an agreement with
Electricite de Djibouti of Djibouti to undertake the
same project, which will be financed by the African
Development Bank (AfDb), at an additional project
cost of 16 million Br.
In 2005, EEPCo had over 6,000Km of 230Kv and 132Kv
high voltage transmission lines and medium and low
voltage sub-transmission lines in total. The
Corporation has currently upgraded this figure to
over 72,000Km. Moreover, the installations of 400Kv
787Km transmission line from Beles through Bahir Dar
to Addis Abeba and from Gilgel Gibe to Sebeta are
underway.
Based on the decision by the government two years
ago to undertake transmission line and sub-station
projects on credit, EEPCo is currently undertaking
over 10 transmission line projects.
EEPCo generates 800mw hydroelectric power from six
huge and three small hydro dams. It is also
overseeing Tekeze, Beles, Gibe III and Amertineshi
hydro dam projects that are projected to be
finalised in 2010.
If the negotiation between EEPCo and the financier
Kalpataru brought succeeds, the installation of the
transmission lines will give access to electricity
in rural towns along the route. Currently
sub-stations are being built in Alamata, Kombolcha,
Kotebe and Kaliti with finance obtained from a
Chinese company.
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