The Coega Development Corporation (CDC) has announced the award of contracts to the value of about R500 million on projects in the industrial development zone. The CDC board approved the awards on March 26. The contracts include the provisional award for the management and operation of the Wells Estate and Joorst Park Construction Villages, the upgrading of the national road between the St Georges Strand interchange and the Coega River, as well as the bulk electricity supply infrastructure for the IDZ and the deepwater Port of Ngqura . All the contracts form part of the infrastructure rollout in and around the IDZ, which commenced last year. One of the contractors, ESS Coega (Pty), Ltd has been announced as the preferred service provider for the R250 million management and operation of the construction villages contract, subject to negotiations on the finer details of the contract with the CDC. ESS Coega is a joint venture company, which is 70 per cent owned by the Compass Group of Southern Africa through its subsidiary, the ESS Support Services Worldwide (Southern Africa) and 30 per cent by the Western Region Women's Association. The contract should commence immediately the negotiations are finalised, and will cover a three-year period for Joorst Park and five years for Wells Estate, ending in 2007. The R80 million contract to upgrade the road between the St Georges Strand interchange and the Coega River has been awarded to Port Elizabeth based Newport Construction. The CDC is collaborating with the National Road Agency (NRA) on the project, which will contribute about 40 per cent to the project value. The NRA is similarly contributing to the total value of the R157 million Neptune Road systems interchange project, which was awarded to the Ibhabhathani JV in 2002. The interchange will comprise four bridges over Neptune Road, with an additional road-over-rail bridge with a further two bridges. On completion in 2004, the road will be a six-lane dual carriageway. The current contract involves the doubling of a section of the NR2, the rehabilitation of the existing two-lane single carriageway between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown, the construction of a westbound carriageway, a conveyor bridge, road-over-rail bridge and drainage structures. The CDC awarded the contract to a relatively new company, which had achieved the best developmental mix of black economic empowerment, participation by historically disadvantaged individuals and a local enterprise, as set out in the CDC procurement policy. "It’s a newly formed company with no track record, but that is balanced out by the presence of Basil Read and Newport Projects - who are experienced in this kind of work - as shareholders of Newport Construction," says the CDC media spokesperson, Vuyelwa Vika. The bulk electricity supply infrastructure contract, worth R233 million was awarded to Alstom Power Systems. The contract work will support the future electrical reticulation to service the IDZ and the Port of Ngqura, and complements the high voltage installations being provided by Eskom transmission to service the aluminium Pechiney project. The work includes the design, manufacture, supply, delivery, installation, construction, testing, commissioning and upholding of the bulk electricity supply infrastructure. The awards follow less than a week after the announcement of a R300 million contract awarded to a local company to build tank containers for a Dutch company. The CDC contracts amount exceeds the value of contracts the corporation has awarded for construction-related contracts in 2002 by about R200 million. " The contracts value for the whole of last year was around R305 million, but now within the first three months of the year, the CDC has awarded contracts with a value that has nearly doubled last year ' s amount. This clearly demonstrates that the project ' s rollout will definitely increase this year, and that logically translates into opportunities at both a social and economic levels for the metro and the province, " says Vika.