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| Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi |
The Federal Government has started a $41bn railway expansion
to reduce dependence on oil and diversify the economy, the Minister of
Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, has said.
“The plan we have now will go to every nook and corner,”
Amaechi said on Wednesday in an interview in Abuja, Bloomberg reported.
The Federal Executive Council also on Wednesday approved the
contract for the repair of the Itapke-Ajaokuta-Warri rail link.
Nigeria, which is Africa’s biggest oil producer, is going
through its worst economic slump in 25 years following a plunge in the price
and output of crude, which accounts for more than 90 per cent of foreign income
and two-thirds of government revenue.
President Muhammadu Buhari’s Economic Recovery and Growth
Plan, presented in March, seeks to boost agriculture and manufacturing by
developing the country’s transport network and power infrastructure.
The plan’s key projects include building a second railway
line connecting the nation’s two biggest cities, Lagos and Kano. The
1,100-kilometer (680-mile) line will carry freight and passengers. The
government also wants to construct a rail line that will connect Lagos to the
eastern city of Calabar.
The two new railways are expected to cost $20bn, with most
of the funding coming from the Export-Import Bank of China, which has so far
released $5.9bn.
The China’s Civil Engineering and Construction Company is
handling the projects and both railways should be ready by the end of 2019,
according to the minister.
General Electric Company is leading a group that is
rehabilitating Nigeria’s 3,505 kilometres of century-old, narrow-gauge railway
linking the coastal cities of Port Harcourt and Lagos with the North.
The group, including SinoHydro of China, South Africa’s
Transnet SOC Limited and the Netherlands’ APM Terminals BV would fund, revamp
and operate the railways for a period to be decided with the government, the
minister said.
They won the concession in May, the report said.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, who briefed State House correspondents at the end of the FEC meeting
presided over by the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, put the cost of the
Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri rail contract at
$122,616,582.
He said the cost was inclusive of all taxes at the
prevailing Central Bank of Nigeria’s exchange rate of $1 to N305.
The minister said the contract, spanning 15 months, would
include the completion of 12 rail stations.
Mohammed said the council also approved a ‘letter of
comfort’ to the General Electric for concession of the narrow gauge railway
system with the government targeting the haulage of one million tonnes of goods
by rail this year.
He said Amaechi had approached the council seeking approval
for a letter of comfort so that by October this year, the country would be able
to begin the full utilisation of the Lagos-Kano narrow gauge, Calabar, Port
Harcourt, Maiduguri line.
“This is part of the efforts to rehabilitate the 30,000km
narrow gauge lines so that we can use it to start hauling goods, which means
that with effect from October this year, there will be new locomotives, about
17 wagons that will be in use.
“This way, we will be able to remove at least a million
tonnes of goods from our roads,” Mohammed said.
He said FEC also approved a memorandum on the revised
estimate cost of construction of one 150MVA and 330 132KVA transformer at
Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State and the reinforcement of 330, 132KVA station in
Kumbusto in Kano State for the Transmission Company of Nigeria.
The contract was awarded at the sum of $49,845, and N43,
651, 964.
Mohammed explained that the memorandum sought for a
variation since the project was already 90 per cent completed.
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