The contract for the actual construction of Rosso Bridge near the town of Rosso in Mauritania, with a leg on each side of the Senegal River which forms part of the border with Senegal, has been awarded to Poly Changda Engineering Co Ltd., a high-tech Chinese enterprise integrating engineering construction, design, maintenance, and investment.
The company beat a whole host of competitors including the Chinese giant’s China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), Hunan Road and Bridge Construction, China Railway Seventh Group and Steel Corporation, the Egyptian Arab Contractor, the Portuguese Teixeira Duarte, the Senegalese Rizzani De Eccher / Ecotra / Spic amongst 10 others.
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According to reports, Poly Changda has 30 months to complete the construction of the 1.46km-long bridge designed by Grid International – Consulting Engineers, starting from December 20, this year.
The cost of the contract is over US$ 55M of which will be supplied partly by the African Development Bank (ADB), European Investment Bank (EIB), and the European Union.
The scope of the work
The project entails the construction of the bridge and access viaducts with a total length of approximately 1461 meters on the Senegal River and the development of access roads over a distance of approximately 8 km.
Upon completion, the future Rosso Bridge will have 2 lanes on one side and 1 lane on the other, and average daily traffic of 370 vehicles expected to shoot to 3,210 by 2048. The bridge will improve border crossing conditions between Mauritania and Senegal reducing the crossing time from supposedly 25 minutes to about 2 minutes. It will also help improve access to basic services and the living conditions of the populations residing in the project target area which is the Trarza Region in Mauritania and the Saint-Louis Region in Senegal.
