The Addis Abeba City Administration will inaugurate its first Olympic-size swimming complex, which was constructed for 102 million Br. The city expects that the complex will be the first in the city to meet international standards.

Located near Medhanialem School in Gulele Sub-City, construction of Ras Hailu International Swimming Pool began eight years ago in June. Financed by the City Administration, the construction occurred over two phases.

The swimming pool complex has 500 seats and will be inaugurated in late December.

The Defense Construction Enterprise was the contractor of the project. It subcontracted the first phase to Bereket Tesfaye Consulting Architects & Engineering. Costing 50 million Br, this phase included construction of offices, shops and cafeterias and was finalised in August 2015.

The second phase of the project was sub-contracted to BET Architects due to delays dealing with the electro-mechanical system. The second phase included construction of an underground pumping system that fills the swimming pool and filters the water using sand and chemicals.

The facility has two swimming pools, including one for children and trainees. The main swimming pool is a 50m by 25m Olympic-size pool that has 10 lanes. It requires 5,000 cubic metres of water to fill properly, according to Fekadu Alemu, sports project coordinator of the Addis Abeba Construction Bureau.

“The only part of the work that remains is filling up the water,” he said. “With the current shortage of water in the city, we have not been able to accomplish the fill-up until now.”

The Bureau plans to construct a borehole to extract water from the ground. Once enough water is filled into the pool, it can be used for a year as long as it is constantly chemically treated. While the Olympic-size pool has five pumps, the smaller one has two. There is also one pump that serves as a reserve.