President Muhammadu Buhari has given the directive that all
the 36 state capitals should be connected with rail in the ongoing railway
projects....
The Minister of
Transportation, Mr, Chibuike Amaechi, said this on Thursday at the meeting with
the Chairman Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, Sen. Shehu Sani. The
meeting also attended by the Ministers of Finance; Budget and National
Planning; and Power, Works and Housing was in connection with President
Buhari’s loan request of 5.5 billion dollars. Amaechi said the central rail
line project connecting several communities of northern and southern Nigeria
would be completed in June, next year. According to him, 17 coaches are
expected to arrive in November and out of the number, 10 will be deployed to
Abuja-Kaduna rail line while the remaining seven will be deployed to the
Itakpe-Warri rail line. Amaechi said that part of the money being requested now
for approval by the senate was to execute the rail projects covering
Kano-Kaduna, and Lagos-Ibadan networks. Sani had earlier advised if Nigeria “must
borrow, it must borrow responsibly”. Sani said: “the committee has the mandate
to examine the merits and otherwise of the current loan request of 5.5 billion
dollars of the president. “If we must bequeath to the future generation a pile
of debt, it must be justified with commensurate infrastructural proof of the
value of the debt. “The payment plan of this debt will undoubtedly last the
length of our lifetimes and possibly beyond. “We must leave behind a legacy
that will appease and answer the questions the next generation of Nigerians
will ask,” Sani said. Also providing insight into the loan request, the
Director-General, Debt Management Office, Mrs Patience Oniha, explained that
the loans have sustainable benefits that would live beyond the present generation
of Nigerians. “What we should take away is that we are going into projects
whose benefits don’t go away. “The roads don’t go away, the schools don’t go
away, and the hospitals don’t go away but all that we need to do is to maintain
them properly and that is the explanation I want to make on that,” she said.
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