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The Ministry of Works and Urban Development (MoWUD)
is to import 600,000 tonnes of cement and 100,000
tonnes of reinforcement bars at a project cost of
200 million dollars for the ongoing nationwide
housing development projects. The supplier of the
construction materials will be selected through an
international auction.
The government has designed a five-year plan to curb
the shortage of houses estimated to stand at one
million across the country. According to the plan,
400,000 houses will be constructed in 70 towns, and
the project demands a total of 24 billion Br. The
project was first launched in Addis Abeba three
years earlier than in the rest of the country. Other
towns started on it in the 2006/2007 fiscal year.
The construction of 61,000 houses was started in
2007 in Addis Abeba and 35 other towns. An
additional construction project for 83,000 houses
began in 2007/2008 in 55 towns.
These constructions need from 1 million to 1.5
million tonnes of cement annually, and local cement
factories can, in aggregate, produce about 1.6
million tonnes and can only supply the projects
with half of this amount, which falls short of what
the project needs. The MoWUD has, thus, been filling
the gap by buying the commodity from international
markets.
In this year alone, it has signed a procurement
agreement worth 1.2 million tonnes of cement with A
& G Global Plc, and the consignment would be
arriving soon.
"New cement manufacturers are emerging in Ethiopia.
But, as they can not supply what we need for the
coming fiscal year, imports will continue," Arkebe
Oqubay, state minister for MoWUD, told Fortune.
The other construction material that is in short
supply is reinforcement-bars. The housing
development project needs 150,000 tonnes of
reinforcement bars every year, and the local supply
is no where close to satisfying this demand. In the
first round of the just ended fiscal year alone,
34,305,835 tonnes of metal was imported and
distributed all over the project sites. Another
consignment of 50,000 tonnes was imported in the
second round and the purchase of an equivalent
amount is in process.
"The government allocates the budget for these
imported materials because the construction of the
houses has to be done," Arekebe says.
The government has already prepared a plan signaling
its determination not to allow the shortage of
construction materials to hinder the housing
programme.
The three local cement producers, Mugher of Oromia,
Mesebo of Tigray and National of Dire Dawa, have a
joint production capacity of 1.6 million tonnes
annually, which the government's plan envisions
increasing by 300 per cent (to 4.7million tonnes) by
2011. In the interim period, the government will
continue to import one million tonnes cement
annually, in addition to the import by the MoWUD.
In addition to the existing three, 22 other
companies have got licenses to establish cement
factories and most have entered the construction
stage. The government has, therefore, revised its
original 4.7 million tonnes target to 8.6 million.
To increase the production capacity of the five
local steel manufacturers, government has taken
various measures to help them get raw materials.
Scrap-metal, which used to be exported one year ago,
has now been banned from export, and is supplied to
the local producers through auctions.
In addition, government is also in the process of
importing 2,200 construction machineries from China,
about a hundred of which have already arrived in
Ethiopia. The machineries include loaders, crasher,
dump-trucks and lobed. These machineries will be
distributed to individual, group and company
contractors engaged in transport and condominium
construction sectors that have registered good
performances. Buyers of these machineries have
entered a loan agreement with the Commercial Bank of
Ethiopia (CBE), and they will receive two billion
Birr worth of machineries, Arkebe said. |
