Photograph by Peter Essick
The Addis Ababa City Administrations has finally decided to go ahead with a decade-old project to construct two new water dams on the outskirts of the city to satisfy the increasing water demand of the city’s residents at an estimated cost of some 8 billion birr. The Sibilu and Gerbi Dams, which are to be located some 30km north of Addis, have been in the works for close to ten years due to shortage of finance. However, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED) has finally succeeded in securing the fund from World Bank recently. According to Asegid Getachew, the General Manager of the Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority (AAWSA), the two dams will be constructed on Sibilu and Gerbi rivers, which are tributaries of the Abay, located beyond Mount Entoto on the north-western boundary of the city.
Planned to incorporate water treatment plants and reservoirs which have the capacity to supply 688,500 cubic meter water per day, the water dam projects are expected to increase the city’s water supply substantially.
Just three years ago the city’s water supply-demand gap was hovering around the 40 to 50 percent mark prompting Mayor Kuma Demeksa’s administration to dig more water wells in the nearby towns in the Oromia region. Presently the city’s water supply coverage has reached some 70 percent and according to the city administration the coverage is expected to reach 100 percent within two years. The water well digging was funded by a soft loan obtained from China.
The water from the new reservoirs and treatment plants is planned to enter the city via a tunnel which passes through Mount Entoto, which is expected to be one of the factors increasing the cost.
Some 100 million birr is expected to be paid to be paid as compensation to farmers relocated from the rivers’ basin.
Currently the city sustains its self on the three water reservoirs – the Legadadi and Dire Dams, Gefersa Dam and the Akaki Wells – located in surrounding towns and on the peripheries of the city.