The federal government has embarked on constructing an irrigation project its planners believe will benefit 65,000 farmers in the Wolayita Zone of the Southern Regional State, 180Km north of the town of Arba Minch.

The Weybo Irrigation Project is projected to cost 2.5 billion Br, the first megaproject brought up by the recently constituted Ministry of Irrigation & Lowlands. Having two phases, with the first consisting of the construction of a dam and appurtenant structures on the Weybo River, the project is expected to take a little over two years to complete, according to a project document made available to Fortune.

The state-owned Ethiopian Construction Design & Supervision Works Corporation (ECDSWC), established in 2015 after the merger of three public enterprises, made the design. It is outsourcing the supervision work to the South Design & Construction Supervision Enterprise for 32.4 million Br. The South Water Works Construction Enterprise, a public enterprise formed by the regional state in 1995, has secured the contract to erect the first phase with a projected 1.4 billion Br.

The homogeneous earth-fill dam with outlet and spillway structures will be 33.4 metres high.

Last May, Cross-Land Construction was hired to undertake the second phase of the project irrigation and drainage elements, including the water distribution canal system. The contractor has agreed to complete the work in two years, for a little more than one billion Birr.

The irrigation will have the potential to develop 4,000ha of land in Boloso Bombe and Boloso Sore weredas, according to Ashenafi Likassa, director of irrigation infrastructure development at the Ministry, under Aisha Mohammed.

Aisha held several cabinet portfolios before her current position, including serving as minister of Defense and of Urban Works.

Mobilisation for construction began two months ago, according to Kassahun Woldegiorgis, deputy head of the Southern Region Irrigation Development & Schemes Administration Agency.

“The contractor is also deploying machinery to the project site,” he said.

Compensation to farmers from the area will become an issue to sort out for the local authorities, with a budget outlay of 350 million Br, people familiar with the project told Fortune.