USAID Afghanistan is seeking expressions of interests from Construction Contractors to provide project management and construction works on the Gardez to Khost Road in southeastern Afghanistan.

The scope of this project is to complete a partially-performed rehabilitation of the 101 kilometer existing road between the city of Gardez and the city of Khost in southeastern Afghanistan.  The roadwork is currently at 40% completion.  USAID is considering other alternatives to complete the road.  The road is to have a 7-meter wide two-lane paved surface with one meter of paved shoulder on each side, with roughly 800 culverts, low-water crossings, retaining walls, and other storm drainage structures required to move runoff away from the road foundation. 

The road runs southeastward from Gardez and climbs to 2,900 meters elevation over the Sata Kanda Pass.  It then drops to follow a river canyon characterized by high embankments overlooking the roadway.  It continues then to descend into a relatively flat plain as it approaches the city of Khost.  Grades are less than 2% for the first 23 km out of Gardez, then 56% as it climbs the mountain over the next two km, thence varying from 5 to 8 percent following the river valley though tight curves for the next 53 km, and finally 2 to 3 percent though the last 21 km approaching Khost.  The reconstructed road shall follow the existing alignment depending on engineering considerations in order to minimize the amount of de-mining and rights-of-way (ROW) issues.  The road-wearing surface shall be upgraded to an asphalt-concrete (AC) surface road and shall adhere as closely as possible to AASHTO Standards. 

The contractor will be responsible for all project management, planning, construction, quality control, and security protection as required to complete the road project.  Design, environmental assessments, route surveys, and initial soil investigations will be provided from the current contract, as well as the physical facilities of the two existing base camps.  Approximately 55% of the drainage structures and roadbed preparation has been completed, as has about 15% of the asphalt pavement placement.  The contractor must utilize competent construction subcontractor(s), preferably Afghan owned, and utilize as much local labor and materials as practical. 

Interested bidders are to notify USAID Afghanistan of their interest in submitting a bid on this project. Please provide you expressions by email to [email protected] with the subject Ghardez to Khost Road. Please provide the complete name of your firm, contact persons, telephone numbers and email addresses should you wish to submit a bid on the project mentioned above. USAID is in no way obligated to make an award out of this request for expressions of interest.