Abia to spend N30bn to reconstruct Port Harcourt road Aba
Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, has flagged off the reconstruction of the perennially dilapidated 6.7 kilometres of Port Harcourt Road Aba and equally gave an official completion date of 18 months.
It gathered that the Port Harcourt road, one of the most deplorable Federal Roads in the state was awarded to construction giant, Julius Berger at the rate of N30 billion.
Julius Berger is expected to reconstruct the road as well as build a flood control mechanism within the area which is part of the flood-ravaged Uratta, Ohabiam and Ndiegoro flood-prone area.
Speaking during the flag-off, Otti said he was glad that his administration is taking yet another strategic step in fulfilling one of his major campaign promises which is to permanently break the jinx of Port Harcourt Road Aba and revive the long-abandoned economic activities along the area.
He recalled that artisanship activities and other major business activities within Port Harcourt Road once gave Aba a set of peculiar advantages, starting from the early 1980s when the revered leader, Dee Sam Mbakwe, Governor of Old Imo State, constructed the road to feed into the expansion of the booming oil industrial complex in Port Harcourt.
He said that Mbakwe’s vision gained a foothold almost immediately as the road became a major hub for the servicing of heavy-duty vehicles, equipment, spare parts, power generating sets and ancillary tools.
He stressed that because of Mbakwe’s visit, the entrance axis of the road which has multiple adjoining streets emerged as one of the busiest parts of Aba and a go-to destination for maintenance engineers, procurement officers and contractors working for the multinationals in Port Harcourt and environs, bringing Immediate prosperity and a host of other economic and social advantages to the city of Aba.
“For about two decades, it was all bliss and blush for businesses around this area until things began to fall apart in th
