Ethiopia: Enterprise announces construction of 8,428 condo houses

Addis Abeba will get additional 8,428 homes under the middle-income housing scheme.

For this construction project, the Addis Abeba Savings & Houses Development Enterprise (AASHDE) has obtained 38ha of land in Bole District from the Addis Abeba City Administration. The new homes, which will be constructed around Bole Arabsa, are contained in 54 buildings – 40 being 15 storeys high, the others 13 storeys and two basements. The homes will be one, two and three bedrooms of 59,75 and 100 m² respectively.

Expected to be finalised in a two-year period, the construction is scheduled to commence by the beginning of the upcoming fiscal year.Along with the selection process of the consultancy firms, the Enterprise is preparing contractual manual and prequalification criteria to hire contractors, according to Yohannes Abayneh, communications head at the Enterprise.

The Addis Abeba Construction Bureau has recently issued a new directive which introduced fixed prices for projects to be executed in Addis Abeba. The directive comes after the suspension of 116 small and medium-sized contractors due to delays in the construction of projects, wastage of materials and lower quality of work.

In the current construction, the contractors will be responsible for the provision of construction inputs. “We will only be assisting construction companies in providing inputs which need foreign currency, such as elevators and re-bars,” Yohannes told Fortune.

The Enterprise has constructed over 38,000 homes in the middle-income homes scheme since 2013.

In addition to the middle-income housing scheme, two other schemes – middle-lower income and lower-income – are also under implementation by the city administration. The projects aim to replace substandard residential units in the city, and satisfying the housing demand of the city’s inhabitants. For these housing schemes, a total of one million home-seekers are registered.

Since the inception of condominium housing project in 2005, around 175,000 housing units under the middle-lower income housing schemes were transferred to the residents through eleven rounds.

The project could absorb more than 10,000 jobs in different levels, according to Yohannes. The Enterprise recently opened its fifth branch office with 85 professionals to support and control the construction process.