The National Development Plan III in the section of Transportation stated, "this project of Berbera Corridor was suppossed to complete at the end of 2022." It also says "Dubai Funds for development invested $90M while Prosperity Funds of the UK Goverment invested $33M in Berbera Corridor Project." Together the Berbera Corrider Project is worth $123M.


Berbera Corrider was aimed to connect the sea port of Berbera to the land port of Wajaale, Ethiopia. This was upgrading the road between Berbera and Wajaale while also constructing bridges to avoid the floods interverance withe transportation in the rainy season.

Firstly upgrading construction of the road was completed successfully, together with the construction of bridges.

It was a week before when the floods of this rainy season damaged the Bridge of Da'arbudhuq. This is not the only bridge that was damaged by the floods. Lafaruug, Gabiley, Wajaale were previously damaged by the Floods on this rainy season.


Paper from Somaliland's MoTRD Office



It was 3rd March of this year when the Ministery of Transportation, Public Works and Roads Development has answered on public criticism accusing the Ministry for the failure of these bridges. It was this reason that the Minster answered on  these accusations in a paper from his office deffending the Government from the involvement and development of this massive project. Minister said in this paper, "the role of Somaliland Goverment was to take over the project after completion."

In this paper the minister also stated, "Dubia Funds for Development has invested this project which directly contracted for implementation of the project with the construction company of NPHH and Conser for the design, monitoring and controlling."

The minister explaines further that the conserned entities are ready to correct any issues that arises from the project.

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Lafarug Bridge Damage.



The question that was not answered until now is, are the designs of rebuilding these bridges the same with the previously failed designs, or a new designs will be made to fully connect the river banks completing the width span?

We know that the most criticised reasons for the failure of these bridges was the design of not connecting the bridges to the river banks. It will be shame to reconstruct these bridges or roads using the same design as before as pilling sand to shorten the bridge span will increase the pressure of water, which in turn can damage the overal structure.



By Mohamed Abdi Jama

Bloger, Architect and Construction Manager.