Ministry to Buy Petroleum Transporters at 75 million Br
The Ministry of Works and Urban Development (MoWUD) has ordered 50 trucks from China at a cost of 75 million Br for the state owned Weyra Transport SC for the transport of petroleum. The money was made available through a loan agreement between Weyra and the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE).
The company, which already has 57 trucks, is expecting the delivery of the new trucks in one month, Mesfin Tefera, general manager, told Fortune. The petrol tanks, which will be locally made, will be fitted within three months after the arrival of the trucks, he added.
The trucks are ordered from China National Heavy Duty Truck Company through its sister company, CGC Overseas. The Ministry had previously bought 1,000 Sino Trucks, 100 low-beds and 50 units of construction machinery from this company.
The government decided to make the purchase because the existing 1,500 tankers were not enough for the transport of the country’s imported oil, which, for the past seven years, has been growing at an annual average of 11pc, according to Ethiopian Petroleum Enterprise.
The contract, which CGC has awarded to Mesfin Industrial Engineering Company (belonging to the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray - EFFORT), entails that the vehicles may only be handed over to Weyra after the petrol tanks have been fitted to them, according to the Weyra general manager.
“We have been given the job. We shall deliver the tanks in a short time,” said Tewolde Assefa, general manager of Mesfin Industrial Engineering Company.
Weyra is one of the five freight companies that have been formed after the former Cargo Transport Enterprise was liquidated. The other four were Comet, Shebele, Bekelcha Transport and Addis Mechanical Company, which has currently been privatised.
Weyra has a strategy to replace all trucks with new and better ones, Mesfin says.
The company was selected as the best oil transporter of 2009 by OiLibya for 2009 and second best by TOTAL.
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