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Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio has appealed to host communities at the Eleme and Onne axis of the East-West road to support ongoing efforts of the federal government to complete the project as scheduled.

Akpabio, who made the call during a meeting with stakeholders and management of Reynold Construction Company (RCC) in his office in Abuja, said the government has not abandoned the road as being insinuated in some quarters.

He explained that the ministry has been working with the construction company in charge of the road project and that the company has given assurance that the 338-kilometre East-West road which has been under construction since 2006 would be fixed and delivered by 2022.

A statement signed by the director of press and relations in the ministry, Deworitshe Patricia, also quoted the minister saying that the fedearal government has released the sum of N2.5billion to RCC as part of outstanding payment.

and also made available the sum of N1.17billion to enable the payment of compensation to property owners affected in the road construction.

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He said that due to the volume of traffic on the road, it has become imperative that the road be expanded to six lanes and additional flyovers would be accommodated in the construction work, which he said were not captured in the initial contract and design.

“The road, particularly the Eleme junction and the Onne Port junction area are in a deplorable state. The road when it was first awarded in 2006, was still in very good shape and was therefore excluded from the original contract. However, 15 years after that section has gone bad.

“We have had some apotheosis that have come up within the road corridor, which was not in the original plan. For instance, the Ministry of Power has built a major power sub-station by the Eleme junction, and a lot of other structures have also come on board while a section of the bridge at Aleto also collapsed due to erosion at the embayment of the bridge and due to these unforeseen circumstances, a section of the road was to be redesigned to preserve the sub-station which is germane to the sustenance of economic activities within the region,” he said.

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