It would be recalled that the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, in June 2018 had said issues in South Africa concerning the movement of equipment had delayed the mobilisation to the site of GE.
However, when confronted on Monday with questions on why GE has still not moved to site three months after signing interim concession agreement with the FG, Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi refused to answer questions on the narrow gauge and GE, stating that, “I will not answer any questions on the narrow gauge today because we are here for the standard gauge rail.”
However, the Minister had said in May that rehabilitation of the narrow gauge line by GE will commence in two months.
While handing over the letter of award to General Electric as the concessionaire for two narrow gauge rail lines, following the company’s emergence as the preferred bidder in May, Rotimi Amaechi had stated that the concession would see the firm invest over $2.2bn in the two major narrow gauge rail lines that traverse several sections of the country.
Outlining some of the projects embarked upon by his ministry while hosting a delegation from Singapore at his office in Abuja, the Minister of Transportation had stated that GE would start operating in Nigeria in two months’ time.
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However, three months down the line, workers of the corporation are praying that the narrow gauge project does not end up as another white elephant project.
Speaking to Tribune Online exclusively, President-General of the National Union of Railway Workers (NURW), Alhaji Saidu Garba said workers don’t know when GE will commence rehabilitation of the narrow gauge lines.
“The agreement was signed sometime in April or May 2018, and rehabilitation was expected to commence, but nothing has happened. We keep hearing different reasons for the delay, but as I speak to you, nothing has happened. Maybe tomorrow or next tomorrow, GE will appear on the narrow gauge and start rehabilitation,” the NURW President General stated.
The recent interim concession agreement signed between the Federal Government and the General Electric (GE) on the concession of the 3,400km narrow gauge line of the Nigeria railway track provides for the rehabilitation of the narrow gauge track which is expected to increase its operation to about 40 kilometers per hour from the current 18-20 kilometers per hour that the corporation is doing.
and then