Uncertainty Hangs Over 3,400km Narrow Gauge Rail Project
There is uncertainty over the proposed concession of the 3,400 kilometre narrow gauge line of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), Daily Trust can report.
Investigations by our correspondent revealed that the Federal Government and the consortium of companies led by General Electric (GE) are yet to agree on the terms of the concession.
This is responsible for the delay in the take-off of the concession, especially the rehabilitation of the narrow gauge tracks which is a core component of the proposed concession.
Daily Trust reports that the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, had signed an interim concession pact with GE.
He had said, “Between this May and June, GE will do partial rehabilitation of this line. Currently we are doing about 16 to 18 kilometres per hour. They will rehabilitate the line so that we can at least increase to 40 kilometres per hour and then they will rehabilitate both Lagos to Kano to Funtua to Kaura Namoda and also rehabilitate from Port Harcourt to Maiduguri but that will require nearly about another $50 million.”
However, the track engineers did not arrive in June as promised and it was further shifted to August so that they would immediately commence the rehabilitation of the narrow gauge lines from Lagos to Maiduguri in conjunction with the NRC engineers.
However checks, yesterday, indicated that the engineers are yet to arrive while the rehabilitation work has not commenced. This has dashed expectation of timely rehabilitation of the narrow gauge lines.
The Managing Director of NRC, Engr. Fidet Okhria, had disclosed in August that GE engineers would arrive in two weeks’ time.
With the interim agreement in place with GE, the MD explained that the company would provide 200 new wagons and 10 locomotives to improve the operation of the narrow gauge lines which cover Lagos to Kano and Port Harcourt to Maiduguri.
He said GE engineers working with the engineers of the NRC would immediately commence the rehabilitation of the narrow gauge track which is expected to increase the operation to about 40 kilometres per hour from the current 18-20 kilometres per hour.
Okhiria explained that while the rehabilitation commences, both parties (Ministry of Transportation and GE) would be working on finalising the concession agreement.
According to him, the government has also provided a standby credit facility for GE in case the concession agreement didn’t work out to ensure that the assets they would bring in would remain in Nigeria.
But there is uncertainty over the takeoff of the project, and the minister refused to answer questions on the delay in the concession programme during inspection of the Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge project.
A source at the railways told our correspondent, yesterday, that it was not yet clear when the FG/GE concession would take off.
“But I can tell you the discussion is ongoing with the GE but I don’t know when it would materialize”, the source who pleaded not to be named, said.
