Ethiopia’s construction industry and infrastructure development includes transport infrastructure, road construction, railway and energy projects, real estate and industrial parks. Small and medium construction companies operate in the informal market and local and foreign companies operate in the formal market are categorized in these regard. The involvement of foreign companies is dominated by Chinese companies which are undertaking large projects.
The construction market in Ethiopia is projected to grow at an annual average growth rate of more than 8% to 2026. The country’s 10-year development plan includes infrastructure development and the objective of public-private partnerships.
Cognizant of the crucial role of the construction in the nation economic growth and to maximize its encouraging activities, the Ministry of Urban Development and Infrastructure made discussion recently with the pertinent stake holders on the newly introduced law. According to the Minister of Urban Development and Infrastructure official report, the new policy of the sector is prepared by celebrated professionals who have long experience. They identified the sector main problems which have to be resolved. It reveals that, the sector must be competitive and sustainable so that can play vital role on the expansion of infrastructure.
It is proved that currently the sector has been the major job creator for the unemployed in the urban centers. However, similar to other sectors, the sector has faced various challenges like shortage of hard currency for the importation of inputs, the worsening of unethical practices in the sector, the discrepancy between the complex nature of the construction and the incompetent contractors, the unsafe practice risking workers health, delay of project accomplishment that incurs additional cost on the projects, shortage of inputs obtained from local market such as cement and shortage of finishing materials.
According to the information obtained from the Ministry, the country had no construction policy until 2014. But during the 10 years that followed the introduction of the policy more than 150 thousands professional (contractors) thousands of consultants join the sector annually.
The sector played pivotal role in expanding infrastructure such as water, health, telecom and others. To support the sector, the construction management institute is established and hundreds of professionals graduate annually and join the labor market.
About 16 iron and steel producing factories are established and supply their products to the market and in such venture it has been possible to substitute the imported iron to some extent.
The new draft law considers that exerting coordinated efforts for the betterment of the sector by contractors, consultants and owners of the project is vital and emphasis is given to such venture.
In addition, it is underlined that workers associations and managements should work in the collaborative manner without compromising the construction industry peace. The sector also emphasizes the vitality of inspection of the construction inputs quality both produced locally and abroad.
According to sources, the rampant corruption, malpractice, shortage of hard currency, delay of payment from the owners of the project, shortage of inputs and other inhibiting factors forced most professionals to leave the sector and engaged in other businesses and it is proved that the span on average professionals stay in the sector is only 10 years.
To reverse such desperate situation the Ministry introduced the 30 years road map enables to tackle the deep rooted and complicated problems of the sector and to make it competent in the local as well as in the regional market. The new policy intends to hold 25 percent of the regional markets.
The sector is heavily dependent on imported materials because numerous inputs are imported from abroad hence, to substitute imports, the policy underlined to exert efforts. The new policy has main objectives and among others, it strives for the establishment of competent institutions in the sector, improving the financial system and inputs, enhancing the sector competency and strengthening partnership.
The policy also considers the vitality of social inclusiveness by constructing buildings conducive to physically disabled and women. It also emphasizes the essentiality of the influx of well qualified professionals to the sector.
On the other hand, evidence shows that there is skill gaps between what the sector labor demand and freshly graduate engineers and architects who joined the sector and to narrow the gap emphasis will be given for provision of capacity building. The development of the sector should rely on the well qualified human resources. The sector still utilizes an outdated technology therefore, coming across with cutting age technology should be a priority agenda.
The plan for substituting foreign professionals by the local one is currently out of site and needs steady efforts. The procuring system is not conducive for consultants, contractors and project owners and unless the problem is resolved attaining the sector development is impossible. The local construction works have poor quality and the capacity for quality control is still not mature. therefore, rigorous efforts is needed to address the problem through improving the payment system by introducing an obligatory mandate to the executive institutions.
The provision of license to the people joins the sector is characterized by none transparent and mischievous and to tackle the problem employing professionals with strong integrity in the executive institutions is essential. 25 percent of the construction works make workers vulnerable to physical risk and it also contributes to environment pollution. Therefore, to reduce the unwanted outcome conducting the working activities cautiously is essential. It is proven that, women’s participation in the construction sector is insignificant and in some companies their wage is only half of what is paid for men.
Engineer Ketema Tadesse is a private consultant working for various firms. In an interview with local media, he said that, the new draft proclamation has two rules and four regulations which help to make the sector competent and create better level playing field to stakeholders.
For long the sector is vulnerable to malpractice and corruption and mitigating the problem needs unrestrained efforts.
As to him, the chronic problems that have prevailed in the sector for decades include lack of quality inputs, ensuring accountability, deterring duplication of efforts, wastage of resources, fragmented laws and regulations, lack of safety in the working places hence, providing immediate solutions to the problems is vital.
Despite the huge investment poured on the sector most works are not conducted based on cost benefit analysis leaving the sector to be inefficient. The newly prepared draft law expected to support the sector to function its day to day work based on ensuring quality construction, to inspect the activities of the stake holders, to be competent at the international level, to add value on the construction works, create markets derived by competition, enhance the role of stake holders, to implement periodical evaluation of contractors, to remove people allegedly joined the sector with no valid certificates, to reduce the possible physical risk during the construction.
In addition it helps to make standardized construction works, to deter theft and malpractice, to realize knowledge and technology transfer, simplified the designing and construction supervision, to make formal contract among owners, contractors and consultants to avoid possible disputes, ensuring weather the construction laws and regulations enforced or not.
It also supports regions construction institutions to supervise construction works. As to Ketema, the construction sector has not reached the desired level. So the new draft law is helpful to fast track its progress. The draft law utilizes various stakeholders ideas raised on discussions conducted in various occasions and clearly defines the role of each stakeholder’s duties and rights and if the pertinent institution endorse the law, it paves the way for alleviating the decades long problems of the sector.
As to him, it is not possible to address the deep-rooted problems of the sector prevailed for decades by one institution. Therefore, all stakeholders must play their part in dealing with the shortcomings of the sector.
Emphasizing the roles of stakeholders in information exchange and mutual cooperation he said that, the sector utilizes various materials imported from abroad as inputs by allocating hard currency obtained from the nation meager resource. Yet some of the imported materials are found to be substandard. Hence, to keep the quality of the materials the Ethiopian Standard evaluating Institute has the major responsibility to supervise the materials standard
BY ABEBE WOLDEGIORGIS
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 8 MAY 2025
