Railway Project: Amaechi Schedules Emergency Inspection, Meeting Of Stakeholders
Oru Leonard
In a bid to meet up with the early completion of the Lagos/ Ibadan Railway construction project, The Honourable Minister of Transportation, Rt Honourable Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has called for an emergency meeting and inspection in less than one week after the last monthly inspection.
The inspection which had the Chairman, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) Group, Zhao Dianlong in attendance, started from Ebute Meta Railway yard to Apapa end before addressing journalists.
According to the Minister, “I think there is some remarkable progress from the day we came to today. If we saw the number of staff we saw on site today, we wouldn’t have complained.
“Going from here to the sea port, we see remarkable improvement meaning that something was wrong before their Chairman came. I am going now to have another meeting with him and we will have a total conversation about moving forward.
On the completion date, Honourable Amaechi said that his concentration will be on doing the work to achieve the dateline. “Like someone sent me a text and said let’s not tell them the date anymore, let’s just work, I won’t even tell you the conversation I have had with the Chairman as per completion but let’s see what will happen when we come on Feb 20th.
“If they continue with this kind of speed, we expect that we should be able to commence activities on the track.
“For the Ibadan to Kano, we have said it for long, manpower and equipment will deliver the job on time. So I will request from the Chairman that equipment must be commensurate to the volume of work that we have. Manpower too must also be commensurate to the volume of work that we have.
If they do that, we expect that three years time, they should be able to deliver on the Ibadan to Kano on time. If they have more equipment, that means less time. It’s provided for in the contract.
“As far as I’m concerned, mentally I’m almost out of Lagos. I’m basically trying to focus on kano to Kaduna, Ibadan to Ilorin and Ilorin to Minna and then to Abuja”, he said.
Also speaking to journalists after the inspection, the MD NRC , My Fidet Okhiria attributed some of the delay to the fact that some of the construction needed was not originally in the plan.
“It was not part of the initial contract. It is part of the additional work done. There were supposed to be physical level crossing in some axis but the Minister insisted that we must obey the law and government policy put in place and he said that there won’t be direct crossing. It is either underpass or overpass because it is Federal Government’s policy on rail and road crossing. So those are the additional works and they have to design and some of the designs have just been approved and they have to acquire more space because when you do the bridge, you don’t expect it to fall within the rail corridor. We expect it to extend beyond it”, the MD said.
On reports of rail track vandalism, Engr Okhiria said that there had been a reduction in the activities of vandals.
“We have had some respite in the last two weeks and the Police have also lived up to their responsibility by ensuring that they pick those that are involved and charge them to court immediately. Once they charge to court, it depends on the judge who sometimes detain them for two months or more and I think their colleagues are hearing it and that is why they have reduced”
He also said that the situation at the port has contributed to the delay in getting additional coaches working.
“I think in the next one week, the ship carrying the rolling stock will be able to berth. It is not just the railway that makes the economy and we cannot close the port because of our items but we hope by next week, the ship will be able to berth and we will be able to offload”, he concluded.
