ETHIOPIA DAM OFFICIAL BLAMES DELAYS ON METEC

Construction of a $4-billion dam at the heart of
Ethiopia’s bid to become Africa’s biggest power exporter has been delayed five
years as engineers had to replace shoddy work by a conglomerate that was pulled
off the job last year, a project official said.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, announced in
2011, was designed to generate more than 6 000 MW in a region that struggles to
produce enough energy, but has proved a lightning rod for tensions in both
Ethiopia and Egypt.

“We have removed some of the steelworks on
bottom outlets and replaced them with new ones,” Belachew Kassa, the site coordinator
and deputy head of the project, told Reuters.

He added, “The bottom outlets … were
initially done by METEC,” referring to Ethiopia’s military-industrial
conglomerate that undertook much of the building work but was pulled from the
project in August last year after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office that April.

“Our experts found that the bottom outlets
were below quality (requirements).” A bottom outlet is an opening at a low
level from a reservoir that is generally used to freely discharge water.

Controversy in Ethiopia has focused on METEC’s
involvement in the project to dam the Nile, but Egypt sees the effort as an
existential threat, since the river supplies nearly 90% of its fresh water for
drinking, farming and industry.

Early this year, Ethiopia handed contracts to
fulfil METEC’s work to a group of foreign companies that include Italy’s Salini
Impregilo SpA, GE Hydro France, China Gezhouba Group Corp, Voith Hydro Shanghai
and China’s Sinohydro Corp.

Belachew said it was unclear exactly how much METEC
was to blame for delays that have put the project five years behind schedule.

The dam was initially supposed to have been
finished in 2018, but an initial two turbines are now due to start generating
750 MW each in December 2020.

The entire dam is due to be completed by 2022, Ethiopia’s water minister, Seleshi Bekele, said last week.http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/ethiopia-dam-official-blames-construction-delays-on-conglomerate-metec-2019-10-01/rep_id:4136