Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Masrour Barzani’s office said in a statement on Thursday (February 13) that it would soon begin construction on the long-planned 100-meter highway in Sulaimani, closely following the original plan that was paused because of the financial crisis.
The KRG Prime Minister’s office said that, after discussing and revising its plans for strategic projects in the Kurdistan Region with technical committees, it would move towards an implementation phase.
“Sulaimani’s 100-meter highway is one of those projects that we will start working on soon. The project has been approved by the prime minister himself. As soon after the weather gets better and after initial preparations are finished, we will start working on it,” the statement said.
“At the same time we are preparing to implement other projects in the Kurdistan Region, like…the Twaquta bridge project in Halabja that would connect Halabja and Darbandikhan together,” it added.
Qaiwan Company, which is responsible for implementing the project, said on Thursday that it would start work in one month.
“After initial preparations, we will start working on the project in one month,” the company said.
The 100-meter highway project, which refers to the width of the roadway, was designed in 2011 and preliminary work was well on its way before being paused because of the financial crisis in 2014.
According to the design of the project, the road will be 146 kilometers long and completed in three phases. The first phase of the project will stretch from the Tasluja bridge to the Arbat-Sulaimani road, while the second phase will connect the Arbat road to a tunnel through Goizha Mountain, and the third phase will run from behind Goizha Mountain to the Sulaimani-Dukan road.
There are frequent complaints from residents and officials in Sulaimani that infrastructure projects in the governorate have been ignored in favor of pouring funding into projects in Erbil, like the new 120-meter road.
NRT Digital Media
13/02/2020
