Ethiopian Review

The Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA) has become the only federal agency to have received a supplementary budget to cover its deficit during the current fiscal year, sources disclosed.

It has been granted an additional budget of half a billion Birr after the Council of Ministers endorsed the request made by Sufian Ahmed, minister of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED), these sources disclosed.

However, this amount represents only one third of the supplementary budget ERA’s managers had requested the federal government in December 2008. ERA plans to finance the construction of 189 projects during this fiscal year.

It had requested 12.3 billion Br for its operation during the fiscal year 2008/09, hoping to raise 10.3 billion Br from the government and to solicit the remaining 1.7 billion Br from grants and loans.

However, MoFED approved only 7.3 billion Br. Nevertheless, ERA was so persistent in its request for the supplementary budget that MoFED finally agreed to provide it from surplus profits of state-owned financial institutions and public enterprises. The Macro Economic Policy and Management Department in the Finance ministry is in charge of mobilizing the amount to be drawn from these sources.

The 189 road projects the authority plans to undertake include 34 new roads, four bridge installations and the upgrading of 28 main roads nationwide.

The Federal Government had shown that it would back the Roads Authority by approving 1.7 billion Br of the 2.5 billion Br supplementary budget the latter had requested in the previous fiscal year.

ERA had for a long time been among the recipients of a huge government budget for the implementation of the 10-year Road Sector Development Program (RSDP), which the government first formulated to span 1997 to 2007. Initially divided into two phases (now it is at the third phase), the first five years of the program (RSDP I), 1997-2002, was officially launched in September 1997, and projects, which were both government and donor-funded, have been under implementation.

A total of more than 8,000Km of roads were constructed and upgraded, where 2,000Km were federal level roads and 6,000Km were newly constructed regional roads, during the period of implementation.

The second phase of the plan, RSDP II, (2002-2007) had targeted the rehabilitation of 1,014km, the upgrading of 1,864Km, and the construction of 5,693Km comprising mostly low class roads under the sub-program of Ethiopian Rural Travel and Transport Program (ERTTP).

RSDP III (2007/08 to 2009/10) aims to increase the current 100,000Km road network to 135,500Km after its implementation period ends.

It will work on more than 2,000Km road constructions, 3,400Km upgrading and 483Km rehabilitations.

Along with ERA, the Ministry of Education (MoE) requested for a supplementary budget of 7.8 billion Br from MoE at the end of 2008, although the minister totally rejected MoE’s request with the justification that the education ministry had to make the request specific and detailed.

It had requested a 10.7 billion Br budget for the current fiscal year though MoFED has given it only 4.9 billion Br.

MoE wanted the supplementary budget to finance expansion projects in the existing universities, to finalize and furnish the recently constructed 13 universities, and to finance the 10 new ones that are yet to be constructed.

ERA, MoE and Ministry of Defence usually enjoy the larger slices of the national budget.

- By HILINA ALEMU | Addis Fortune