Amaechi in China, Expresses Concerns over Delay in Manufacture of Railway Coaches
The Transport Minister, Hon Rotimi Amaechi has expressed dismay over the delay in the manufacture and delivery of rail coaches.
Amaechi who said Nigeria is to take additional 10 coaches for deployment on the Abuja-Kaduna and Lagos-Ibadan rail line said the manufacture by the Chinese company is being delayed.
The 10 coaches were part of the 64 coaches being manufactured by the Chinese Railway Rolling Corporation which delivery date was June this year.
The Minister was quoted to have said during an inspection tour at CRRC where the coaches are being manufactured that the company has failed in meeting the delivery date.
In a statement by the Ministry of Transport, Amaechi said, “We need the coaches by June latest. We need coaches that can carry men from one point to another and we need a minimum of 10 coaches now out of the 64. I requested for 10 coaches now because we need to improve on the Kaduna-Abuja line.
“If the 10 (coaches) don’t come, there is nothing I can do but they have to come because they have to manufacture for us to use in Kaduna-Abuja and again Lagos-Ibadan, which will soon be ready. We also have to ensure that we get coaches that we can use pending when they finish the construction of the 64 coaches.”
“The pace of construction is slow and they need to improve on it. In fact, the contract has expired; we may not have paid all the money but we paid quite a substantial sum and, therefore, they should construct speedily.
“The contract was signed in December 2017 and was supposed to expire in February 2019. The time has expired and there is a breach of contract but we will look at what the law says because more than one third of the money has been paid.”
The Minister also visited the CRRC Shandong facility for inspection of the cargo wagons being constructed for Nigeria.
He was quoted saying, “We had a verbal agreement for them to produce 15 per cent of the coaches, locomotives and wagons. They came back and said it was too expensive to establish locomotives and coaches factory and that we can start with the wagon and do 100 per cent assembly in Nigeria for the first five years. After the first five years, they will now build a factory that will manufacture wagons in Nigeria.
“It is not part of the contract we signed in 2017 but I insisted that for me to sign, they must localise it to create more jobs and reduce the expenditure of foreign exchange. Instead of going to buy dollars, you pay the Chinese in their local currency.
“We have to go further to ask them if we can own it. We have not talked about ownership but what we said was localise it. Although they are using their profit to build it, you can make them hand over the ownership to Nigeria. As for the assembly plant, I intended for Zaria but they chose Kajola in Ogun state.”
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