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The Minister of Transport Rotimi Amaechi said that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved advisers to negotiate with General Electric (GE) towards concessioning the railway.
The Nation reports that the Minister said this to State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to The Nation, Amaechi was with the Minister of Information Lai Mohammed and Minister of Mining and Steel Development Kayode Fayemi.
He said: “For the transport sector, I’m sure you are aware of an attempt to concession the Railway to General Electric (GE). Council approved the advisers that would sit with GE as our experts to negotiate.
“The narrow gauge railway will assist the agriculture, mines and steel development ministries in the transportation of extracted minerals. We are rehabilitating at no cost to government the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri route, which includes Port Harcourt, Aba, Umuahia, Enugu, Makurdi, Jos, Gombe, Bauchi to Borno.
“Then Lagos to Kano will include Lagos, Abeokuta, Ibadan, Ilorin, Kano, Funtua, Zaria and to Kaura Namoda – we are rehabilitating all of them.
“It is essentially to encourage freight movement. We have over 30 million worth of freight on the Lagos-Kano route for which presently we are moving slightly above 100 tonnes. While the Port Harcourt to Maiduguri route is currently moving nothing, but we are anticipating 11 million tonnes that can be moved from Port Harcourt to Maiduguri.”
According to him, the rehabilitation will encourage movement of cargos and passengers .
He said GE will rehabilitate and invest on other railway infrastructure.
“GE is proposing to manage (the railway) for 25 years to recover their investments. Nigerian government has not agreed and that is what our advisers will sit with GE to agree,” he added.
The advisers, he said, included African Finance Corporation (AFC).
Read more: http://thenationonlineng.net/fec-okays-advisers-railway-concessioning/
Source: The Nation