BEIRUT: Residents of Jal al-Dib will resume their protests against the government if officials fail to agree on a project to replace the bridge in their town that was removed last year, Metn MP Nabil Nicolas said Wednesday.

In a letter addressed to Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Nicolas said that time had come for the Council for Development and Reconstruction to send the bridge project it has been studying for the past six months to the Cabinet for approval.

“If construction does not start by the end of the six-month period ... we will return to demonstrating to achieve our demands to build a tunnel,” the MP said. “Mr. prime minister, the Cabinet agreed during a session in July 2012 to build a tunnel and tasked the Council for Development and Reconstruction to prepare the project in six months.”

Nicolas said that seven months had passed and the CDR had yet to refer a bridge project to the Cabinet. Jal al-Dib residents staged several road blocks to first demand that the unsafe bridge be dismantled and later to demand the construction of a replacement.