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Tender results of five lots have been evaluated and
approved by the Tendaho Sugar Factory Project Board
and submitted to the Ethiopian Sugar Development
Agency (ESDA), administrator of the three sugar
factories - Tendaho, Wonjishoa and Finchaa. Five
copies of the results were sent on to Girma Birru,
minister of Trade and Industry, last Monday and are
pending final approval.
Although the tender results were approved by
Shiferaw Jarso, chairman of Tendaho’s Board of
Directors with a ministerial portfolio, disclosure
of the results awaits the go-ahead from Minister
Girma.
However, some of the bidders showing interest in
August are lodging complaints against the evaluation
process, sources disclosed.
The sugar mill project at Tendaho has nine
components, including a juice extractor, steam
generator, power generator and a processing house.
Sources close to the situation told Fortune
that, within a month, a committee of senior
government officials will make a decision on the
tender results completed last month.
The committee, necessitated by complaints and the
foreign origin of project funds (Indian ExEx Bank),
embraces representatives from sugar factories, ESDA,
and the ministries of Finance and Economic
Development as well as Trade and Industry.
Half of the 640-million dollar soft loan secured
from the Bank was budgeted to erect a brand new
sugar mill at Tendaho, a river basin in the Afar
Regional State.
Through the Project Board was delayed by four
months, if all else goes according to the planned
completion in April 2013, Tendaho will have a
capacity to produce 600,000tns of sugar annually.
The three sugar factories currently have the
capacity to produce 2.8 million tonnes of sugar
annually.
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