THE Federal Government has appealed to General Electric (GE) to revive about 25 railway locomotives ordered into the country by the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha.
According to a statement signed on Tuesday by the Director of Press of the Federal Ministry of Transport, Yetunde Sonaike, and made available to Tribune Online, the Minister of Transportation, Rt Hon Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, said this when the Global Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Electric Jeff Immelt and his team paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.
Amaechi hinted that while the negotiations with GE is ongoing, the Federal Government is very much interested on how GE would revive the 25 Locomotives supplied to Nigeria by GE during the late General Sani Abacha’s regime between now and when the concession agreement would be finalised. He emphasised that if they are revived, it would help to reduced the volume of heavy duty Trucks on the roads and consequently, make the roads to last for longer time.
According to him, “we are negotiating with GE to take over the narrow gauge from Lagos – Kano-Funtua-Yobe, and from Port Harcourt to Borno.
“What we are trying to do now is to see how we can maintain them and put them back to use to increase the capacity of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) so that they can travel from Lagos to Port Harcourt and, to Maiduguri as early as they want without having to spend four to five days before getting to their destinations.”
The Minister also reiterated that the Federal Government has received approval from China EXIM Bank for the N72 billion counterparts funding for Lagos-Ibadan Railway line project. He stated that China Government will contribute $1.5billion for this project.
Corroborating, the Managing Director, Nigerian Railway Corporation,(NRC) Fidet Okhira opined that the concession was open through Advert placements noting that Five (5) companies have already indicated interest in the concesioning process and GE is one of them.
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