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The construction of the presidential office of the
Oromia Regional State and six other buildings that
was awarded to Afro Tsion Construction Company in
July 2010, for 274.8 million Br, in Kebele 01, Nefas
Silk Lafto District, is to start on October 11,
2010, after having been delayed.
A steering committee composed of the Oromia Urban
Works Bureau, the district, and Walya Cross-country
Bus Plc, which previously owned the 2,000sqm of land
set aside for the construction and still has
property on it, has set October 10, 2010, as the
deadline for Walya to remove its properties.
Walya floated a tender for the sale of old buses,
trucks, and metal bars that it has on the property,
which will be closed on September 25, 2010. The
winner has to remove the property within three days,
according to the bid document.
“The land will be handed over to Afro Tsion by
October 10, and it will start construction by
October 11, whether Walya removes its property or
not,” Gifawosen Desisa, head of the Infrastructure
Design and Construction Implementation Process of
the Oromia Urban Works Bureau, told Fortune.
In addition, three million Birr should be paid to
Walya as compensation for the plot, the Nefas Silk
Lafto District had recommended to the Addis Abeba
City Administration. The recommendation is currently
under consideration.
Afro Tsion Construction is currently making the
necessary preparations for the work.
“We have started setting up the human resources and
will start buying construction materials and
bringing in machinery once we receive the land,”
Tulu Gemechu, office engineer of the site, told
Fortune.
The design of the project, which was done by
Ultimate Consulting Engineers and Architects for
free, includes a presidential office building, a
counselling office building, an assembly hall, and
four medium and small conference halls. The
projected cost of the assembly hall, 101 million Br,
requires the lion’s share of the total project cost
of 274.8 million Br, while the council office takes
the second highest at 56.2 million Br.
Ultimate and Afro Tsion are not new to the
construction projects of the Oromia Urban Works
Bureau with the former also having designed four
buildings of the Oromia Regional Government Sectoral
Office and the latter constructing them for 85
million Br.
Six construction companies including Rama
Construction, DMC Construction, Teklebirhan Ambaye
Construction, and Zamra Construction had initially
put in bids for the construction of the seven
buildings. |
