QUẢNG NGÃI – The People’s Committee of central Quảng Ngãi Province has asked the Vietnam Expressway Development and Investment Corporation (VEC), the investor of Đà Nẵng-Quảng Ngãi Expressway, to urgently repair 17 roads, which have been seriously damaged during the construction of the expressway, before the Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday.

Vice chairman of the committee Nguyễn Tăng Bính said the Đà Nẵng-Quảng Ngãi Expressway had been in operation for four months, but the investor has not yet fixed the residential roads as promised.

The roads sustained serious demages during the construction of the expressway.  

Bính said the repair work on these roads must be completed before January 31 to ensure safety.

He asked the VEC to rebuild torn up roads and complete the work before March 31.

In the past several months, people living around Đà Nẵng-Quảng Ngãi Expressway passing through central Quảng Ngãi Province have repeatedly petitioned agencies about the deterioration of residential roads after lending them to the investor of the expressway.

They claimed the residential roads were damaged by trucks carrying building materials to serve the project. They asked the investor to repair the roads, but their request was ignored.

Nguyễn Vũ, resident in Bình Sơn District’s Bình Trung Commune told Người lao động (Labourers) newspaper that the investor and contractor of the project agreed to repair the roads, but have not done so.

“All the roads have been badly damaged with potholes and subsidence. It’s dirty during sunny days and becomes quite dangerous in rainy weather,” he said.

People in neighbouring areas such as Tịnh Hà and Tịnh Thọ communes in Sơn Tịnh District and Nghĩa Kỳ Commune in Tư Nghĩa District face the same situation.

Trịnh Phú Định, chairman of Bình Trung Commune’s People’s Committee, said the committee has asked the construction unit of the project to resolve the situation, but had received no reply.

Đoàn Hà Yên, vice chairman of Bình Sơn District’s People’s Committee said 14.6km of roads passing through four communes of the district had been downgraded.

The Đà Nẵng-Quảng Ngãi Expressway opened to traffic on September 2.  The project, which cost more than VNĐ34.5 trillion (US$1.47 billion), has total length of more than 139.2km, including 131.5km of high-speed road and another 7.7km linking the expressway with National Highway 1A. It traverses Đà Nẵng City, central Quảng Nam and Quảng Ngãi provinces, which form part of the central key economic region. – VNS