Sengatera, aka the Financial District, is emerging as Ethiopia's Wall Street with many highrise buildings owned by banks and insurance firms dotting the boulevards.

Some of the buildings have reached the finishing stages, while the others are still undergoing construction of the foundation or structural features, giving the area a quite impressive view.

Almost all of the buildings are constructed or are under construction by Chinese contractors, with very few contracts going to local construction companies.

Chinese construction companies are popular in Ethiopia. Out of all non-national employees who secure a work permit from the Ministry of Labour & Social Affairs, 53.6pc were employed in the construction sector. In contrast, 19.7pc and 13pc are employed in manufacturing and other services, respectively.

The Ministry issues a work permit, which has to be renewed every three months, for ex-pat employees in the areas that cannot be undertaken by local professionals. The Ministry also requires non-local professionals to train the local people and transfer their knowledge.

Still, Chinese employees dominate the threshold. Between July 2017 and July 2018, the Ministry issued a total of 9,629 work permits for expatriates, of which 5,156 were for construction workers. Out of the total permits, the Chinese have the highest allocation of 61pc.

Though local contractors are not involved in such projects, some local consultancy firms including Eskinder Architect, JDAW Consulting Architects & Engineers and ETG Designers & Consultants are contracted to supervise the headquarter buildings of United, Zemen and NIB banks, respectively.

One of the buildings undergoing construction with the supervision of a local firm is Nile Insurance's headquarters. Wossen Consulting Architects & Engineers is that local firm.

Wossen is supervising the construction of the building, which has 29 storeys and is being constructed by another local firm, Rama Construction, for 240 million Br. Rama is currently working on the finishing work of the building along with China Jiangsu International Economic & Technical Cooperation for 872 million Br.

Most of the local companies are excluded from such kinds of projects, since the technical evaluation is deliberately toughened for local contractors, according to Behailu Hunde, who has more than a decade of experience in the sector and currently works as a project manager at Wossen.

“The technical specifications limit the local contractors from competing in highrise building projects,” Behailu said.

Ameha Sime, president of the Construction Contractors Association of Ethiopia, says that absence of a law that enforces the participation of local contractors and subcontractors has excluded local companies from such big projects. Established in 1991, the Association has 1,750 contractor members with license grades between one to nine.

A bid document prepared by the Federal Public Procurement & Property Administration Agency stipulates that any bidding contractor should provide certificates of execution of previous contracts for a similar size as the new project it is bidding for.

Mesfin Negewo, director general at the Ethiopian Construction Works Regulatory Authority, says that local contractors have some issues with management capacity and ethics.

The Authority was established recently after going through a split with the Ministry of Urban Development & Housing to oversee the health and safety standards at construction sites, as well as the quality of construction inputs and competency in the industry.

"You'll notice their negligence, starting with the fence of the construction site and the value they give to safety," he said. "Even senior contractors have financial constraints to retain senior and skilled manpower."

However, the Authority is working on a legal framework to help the local companies engage in big projects as subcontractors with foreign companies.

Asmerom Weldegerima, a structural engineer with a decade of experience and a lecturer at Addis Abeba University's Institution of Technology, claims that the quality and capacity of local contractors has been declining for the past several years.

Asmerom also says that it is hardly possible to find a senior professional in government construction administrations.

"Because the seniors don't receive equitable compensation, they are less likely to stay for long with their employers," he said.

He further explained that the sector did not get the attention it deserved, adding that when buildings started failing, the approach taken was in making the contractors and the clients have insurance coverage.

"However, it is not a convenient solution. It should be investigated in-depth," he said. “The design should be reviewed before the construction work kicks off.”

Addis Abeba University Institute of Technology, a client representative of the under-construction mega building headquarters of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, also claims that it was challenging to find qualified local contractors.

When the work is beyond the institution’s capacity, the management tries to outsource to actors in the local market or from abroad in the absence of local professionals, according to Esayas G. Yohannes, executive director of the Institute.