The Egyptian ambassador to Ethiopia Mohamed Idris announced on 17 December that local firm Arab Contractors have been awarded a contract to work on the initial implementation of the Ethiopian section of the Cairo to Cape Town road project.

The road in Ethiopia will stretch for approximately 170km, and is funded by the African Development Bank. It will service the Mombasa, Nairobi and Addis Ababa corridor and is part of the planned Trans-African Highway Cairo-Cape Town, which will run for thousands of kilometres and link Egypt to South Africa.

In a statement released to the media, Idris said the move also comes as part of Egyptian efforts to become more involved in projects with an “African dimension”.

Other contracts awarded to Arab Contractors in Africa include the Arboutchatak road project in Chad, the Owerri-elele road project and infrastructure work on the Wuye district in Nigeria. 

News of the contract award comes at a time of unprecedented tension between Egypt and Ethiopia as a result of the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. According to Egyptian officials, the dam will severely affect Egypt’s water supply and drastically change the 1959 Nile treaty, signed in absence of Ethiopia, which grants Egypt the majority of the Nile’s water supply.  

The dam project will have a total cost of $4.8bn, and is expected to be complete and fully operational by 2017.

The main contractor working on the dam will be the Italian company Salini Costruttori, which also served as primary contractor for the Gilgel and Tana Beles dams.