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.
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 kilometers 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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