Anyone who goes around in Addis Ababa today will note something exceptionally special, something not usual going on with impressive intensity and continuity. They will notice that there are so many tracks carrying all sorts of building materials and unloading them around all the places along the main busy roads where there seem to be extensive construction sites, along all the principal roads and avenues of the city, mostly among the quarters situated along the old city and its environs. They see scores of young people engaged in handling all these extensive construction activities such as widening the roads by doing away with old houses using heavy-duty trucks, putting down shops which were constructed too close to the main roads just along the edges preventing the easy movement of pedestrians.
They see scores of loaders, excavators and other heavy-duty construction trucks engaged in helping put down the unwanted houses and walls soon and taking away the rubles to the Lorries that are stationed by their sides to clear the sites. They see all sorts of piles of construction materials including hills of stone, bricks, sand pebbles, and iron rods, fine sand and huge tubes made of cement to be buried under the soil so that they serve as sewerages. They see ceramics for the sidewalks and piles of grass brought from other places and meant to be planted along the roadsides. They see people very busy going about the various phases of the construction and engaged in their own specific home works given them by their immediate supervisors. There are those who deal with the burying of the tubes underground while side by side there are the drivers of the camions taking away the debris from the dismantled old houses.
There are those who plant the grass on the piles of soil already prepared for the same purpose. Then there are those who keep the pedestrians and traffic away from the sites so that they do not create any inconvenience to the labourers. Here you see uniformed law enforcement and traffic police that direct people in their movements. Above all what one does not fail to observe is the sense of urgency and purpose, the sense of coordination with which all these activities are being carried out simultaneously.
We have been informed by the city authorities that the work continues all day round without interruption and proceeds throughout the night as well as engaging people in shifts. That is why we see so much progress in the realization of the project visible by the day and keeping pace with the timeframe already set. We have heard many times in the past that one of the failures of all previous administrations was the failure to complete projects on time with the quality required. We have observed that projects in our country have almost always taken more time than planned and more resources than originally earmarked.
What is even worse has been abandoning the project without completing it due to a number of reasons such as total lack of finance or even owing to new developments that make the project not as relevant and hence not required. For instance, we have come across huge national projects such as the sugar factories that were promised to be completed in a few years but have for years continued to go on unfinished. We have seen how fertilizer plants were initiated by not finishing on time. We have even seen the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, GERD which was initially meant to be completed within a few years of its launch and yet it lagged under construction for years with little notable progress due to multiple problems related to the capacity of those who were entrusted with some of the construction works that had to do with hydroelectric dams, the required expertise to run the project and the lack of strict supervision and follow up by the relevant responsible authorities.
It was thanks to the newly reformed administration that many of those mega projects were revisited and checked to advance with new impetus and a sense of purpose and urgency. Now after checking with the accounts and the exact stage of the projects many have been restructured and redesigned while for instance the GERD has been subjected to a serious review of how it was being carried out and now it has come to the completion stage of 96 %. Now that there is enough water in the reservoir more turbines are to be used to generate more electric power which will give a new impetus to the export of power.
The Corridor Development Project in Addis is one of those projects with which the current government is being identified. We see that project management and administration have become a trademark of this government and the guidance at the highest levels takes full credit for that. Efficiency of project management and completion is one way of gauging a government and the public can now have more trust in its leaders and would be inclined to contribute their share to see their dreams realized.
We have seen so many new projects conceived, developed and realized under this administration that even those who are critics of the same are ready to admit and admire. Addis as the capital city of Africa and seat to scores of important international agencies is now being blessed by all of the renovations that are underway changing practically the image of the city and making it not only a better place to live in and work but also be a huge tourist attraction for people coming from abroad both for leisure as well as work.
The amount of green area is growing by the day with not only planting trees but also grass and flowers along all the roads with the sidewalks very comfortably prepared for pedestrians. Addis was notoriously considered as not very comfortable or friendly with its pedestrians due to the scarcity of sidewalks reserved for them and still less for people with disabilities. However, with the new Corridor Development Project all these amenities are being taken care of because they are a part of the project. There are bound to be spaces reserved for cyclists and for wheelchairs besides pedestrians.
We all know that the Green Legacy Initiative that was launched some five years ago is now reaching the planting of more than thirty billion seedlings with the addition of this year’s trees. It is also known that this huge project is part of the attempt to combat climate change and keep the environment clean and safe for residents all over the country and there are already remarkable changes with the greening of areas which were previously full of dusty and dry places deprived of any sort of vegetation. For this year more than six billion tree saplings are prepared, according to the relevant authorities in the Ministry of Agriculture and within a couple of years the huge objective of planting fifty billion tree seedlings will be attained.
A sort of green revolution has been going on in the country over the past five years and people are now well aware that planting trees and various other forms of vegetation pays in the long run. These days in Addis we can observe that along with the expansion of the roads labourers are seen planting new trees that are already grown up and brought from other places. We see others planting and taking care of the planted mattresses of grass all along the streets throughout the roads’ sides by watering them.
These are all activities that are being carried out every day and every night with laborers working twenty-four. Progress is visible by the day. Today you see a part of the city streets freed from the old constructions and roadsides, tomorrow you see the replacement with new landscape, new pavements and new mattresses of green grass.
In the beginning, when the first demolitions were noted around the old neighborhood commonly known as Piassa and its environs, people were making all sorts of positive conjectures that this was a good move because the old houses around that neighborhood were practically unlivable and it was only because people would not know where to begin from scratch to build a new house or rent one because their economic resources are very limited. Most of the people living there were low-income families some even depending on the informal trade and spent what they managed to earn on a daily basis with hardly anything for another day. It is a very precarious situation but they have lived in this manner for ages and not had any alternative.
Then some people began to be afraid or anxious hearing the stories circulating that the entire neighborhood was to be demolished and a new one to be constructed in a modern way. The inhabitants were contacted and called for a meeting with the municipal authorities to explain to them what the administration had in mind. They were told that they would be given new replacements depending on their real status in relation to the houses. Thousands were relocated to new places and liberated from the dilapidated houses that lacked basic sanitation services. Some were heard saying that it was as if they were reborn and were grateful to the city administration for these changes. But later on, they were to see that the project was more than one that was limited to the Piassa area.
Ever since the completion of the Adwa Victory Memorial which in its right is a huge project that has transformed the neighborhood and the city centre giving it a new grace and beauty, many people have thought that it was because of this project that the houses around Piassa were being demolished and replaced etc. However, the municipality made it clear that it was a new extensive project that would involve many quarters of Addis well beyond Piassa and it was called the Corridor Development Project.
Many neighborhoods began to be demolished, especially at the sides of the main roads of the city such as the one going from Piassa to Arat Kilo and then to Megenagna to CMC as well as the one that begins from Mexico Square to Sar Bet etc The one that begins around CMC and goes to the quarter known as Summit, people began to realize that the project was very extensive and affected practically every quarter around the central areas of the city.
All the principal avenues of the city were involved in the Corridor Development Project and it was all begun practically at the same time and preceded very fast with apparently every construction material available including the required personnel. The management and supervision staff was also prepared so that the entire project is being supervised and monitored constantly. Many have said that a new culture of work is being developed and a sense of purpose as well.
This is of course unprecedented in the lifeline of the city. There has never been any kind of project in the city of this magnitude and intensity involving so many people and so many quarters simultaneously. Addis has been visibly full of extensive construction sites in practically every quarter for the past several years. Still, they are mostly huge business entrepreneurs who are engaged in real estate development and building their own residences. Many times we see multistory buildings that could be used for offices, businesses and apartments for residential purposes. In fact, if one opens their TV sets they will see that there are so many advertisements luring new clients to buy these houses at reduced prices etc. and the competition seems quite stiff. One can say that lately there has been a particular boom in the construction industry in the city. But the newly introduced Corridor Development Project seems to have totally transformed Addis and many would not even recognize it once this specific project is complete within a few months. However, the authorities have said that this would not be the end and feeling satisfied is dangerous because a sense of easy gratification does not lead to better and more extensive projects. In other words, there are many more to come including in other cities in the country.
BY FITSUM GETACHEW
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 20 JUNE 2024
