By Lucy Ogalue
The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has tasked the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), contractors handling the Lagos -Ibadan Rail project to quickly complete the project.
Amaechi at the inspecting the new Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge railway line project told the Chinese company that they had no reason to delay the project because they had all they needed for the project.
He inspected the project in company of the Minister of Transportation, State, Gbemisola Saraki, Managing Director, Nigerian Railway Corporation, Fidet Okhiria and Chairman, Board of Directors, NRC, Malam Ibrahim Al-Hassan-Musa, among others.
Amaechi began the inspection at Costain in Lagos State where a bridge is being constructed and later moved to inspect the Overpass at Asade level crossing at Agege, floor mill also in Lagos.
The minister also inspected construction works at the various stations along the 156km rail line corridor which included Apapa, Kajola, Papalanto, Abeokuta and Omi Adio, among others.
“CCECC has not done too well. I used the phrase too well because at a time, they did us proud by trying to push this job.
“They claim that at the end of the last government, we were owing them some money and we had not given approvals for the extra and additional jobs.
“But that’s not an excuse because we will still have given the approval. So they have slowed down so badly. We need to get them to that speed that they were before the last government was dissolved.
“We paid them on Friday. The cabinet and president has approved the additional and extra works so they have no excuse.
“So if we get the loan for Ibadan-Kano, we won’t have delays. We can then start quickly from Kano to Kaduna and Ibadan to Ilorin so we can quickly finish,”Amaechi said .
Meanwhile, the Managing Director Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), Fidet Okhiri, also reiterated the need for the contractors to speed up work on the project.
He said:”I think our major issue now is to see how we can get to Apapa port, because without the track getting to Apapa port the idea of making this rail has not been achieved.
“We hope that by December we should be heading there since there is no major obstacle as all the obstacles have been cleared. “They have made progress and we hope by November when the coaches come, nothing will stop us from running train till we get to Apapa. News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) reports that Amaechi had on the last inspection expressed dissatisfaction with the level of work done in most of the sites visited.NAN reports that the federal government awarded the 6.68 billion contract to the CCECC on May 18,2018 to build a major segment of a railway from Lagos to Kano.
