By Ijeoma Nwankpa.
The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has expressed dissatisfaction about the pace of work on the Kaduna/Kano standard gauge rail line.
Amaechi was speaking to journalists after an inspection tour of the project in Kano to ascertain the level of work being done on the project and other projects.
He said the federal government has mobilised the contractor, the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, CCECC, to commence work on the project but the pace of the work was deliberately slow.
According to the Minister, the CCECC is playing politics with the project, though they will be complaining of non availability of funds but part of their work is to go and look for money, it is unacceptable that they will continue this work with this pace at this point”
The Minister said out of the two thousand equipment that is supposed to be on the site, only five hundred were on ground while the CCECC alleged that another three hundred were in Kaduna. He said that even with the eight hundred equipment, it was still below the agreed number to speed off the work.
According to Amaechi, “Out of the two hundred and four kilometers length, only seventy eight kilometers have been graded by CCECC.
The Minister was also unhappy with CCECC for not being able to commence work on the Port – Harcourt /Maiduguri rail project, even though they have been committed with some money.
He, however, promised to address the Press and Nigerians on Wednesday after the Federal Executive Council meeting on what was going on.
He also assured Nigerians that the work would be of good standard when completed, stressing that the problem is not the quality but the speed at which the work was going.
The 204 kilometers rail corridor will consist of 13 large and medium sized bridges, 17 framed bridges, 60 highway overpasses, 12 pedestrian overpasses and three stations.
The Minister was also at the Dala Inland Dry Port, where the Managing Director, Mallam Rabiu Ahmed, assured him that the port would be ready in a couple of Weeks.
He said the work remaining was minor fittings that would only take few weeks to be completed for operations to commence at the Port.
Mallam Rabiu told the Minster that by the 31st of March, the Port would be ready for commissioning.
On the Minister’s entourage were the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Mrs Magdalene Ajani, the Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, Mr.Fidet Okhiria and other stakeholders.
Edited by Dada Ahmed.
