Fresh Ritual For Rail Transport

Transport analysts hope the new bill would facilitate the construction of the proposed Niger Delta rail line to Lagos and also rekindle interest by the Odu’a Investment Group to establish a fast rail service between Ibadan and Lagos, while opening new windows for public-private development projects in the country. Former president, Olusegun Obasanjo had used the 1999 Constitution to frustrate the Odu’a Group’s dream of establishing the fast rail line. The bill is also expected to put NRC’s role in its proper perspective. Prince Adetokunbo Kayode, Minister of Labour and Productivity noted that the Corporation has been wearing two caps - that of a regulator of rail businesses and activities and the second cap of operator. “This is a primitive and archaic way of doing business, which is why the whole system collapsed because the operator was more or less the regulator,” the Minister expatiated.

Mixed feelings trail the latest effort by government on the rail revival drive. Mr. Enoch Kanawa, Secretary-General of the National Association of Road Transport Owners, NARTO, was upbeat that revitalisation of the Nigerian railway would boost the economy. Incidentally, bodies like NARTO have been fingered by some critics as impeding the effort out of sheer self-interest. Bio and Senate president, David Mark, as well as a wide pool of other commentators, maintain that members of NARTO and the National Union of Petroleum and National Gas Workers, NUPENG, feed fat on the collapse of the rail system and deem it not in their best interest to witness a functional rehabilitation and modernisation. The critics draw a correlation between the perpetual thrive in road haulage and the perpetual, deliberate destruction of rail transport, with all its attendant high-wire politics. To elevate and sustain the one with a view to enriching trailer and tanker owners and drivers, the other must decay.

But Kanawa, dismissing the allegation as sheer bumkum, held that nobody in his right senses will oppose reactivation of the railway. The NARTO scribe argued that the railway sub-sector would actually create more cost-effective jobs for the association’s over 10,000 members. A revitalised railway system, he posited, would enable its members engage their vehicles in short distance haulage that will yield good returns and avoid the current time-wasting, accident-prone, long-distance businesses that damage trucks easily. Alhaji Lawal Isa, NARTO’s National Operations Coordinator asserted that the body was not averse to the resuscitation of the Nigerian railway or any other mode of transport in the country. Elijah Okougbo, NUPENG’s Secretary-General, added that a revitalised railway transport system would reduce accidents on Nigerian roads.

From the general public was wide indifference and lack of confidence. The crux of their sentiment is the brazen corruption and rape of the treasury, they believed, that was the CCECC contract. “That dashed whatever hope I had on revival of the rail system,” said Oyetayo Abiodun, a banker. In July 2002, Obasanjo had rolled out a 25-year strategic plan to develop a modern rail network for Nigeria. The blueprint provided a 7800km standard gauge rail line connecting all the state capitals. Four years after, the Obasanjo administration awarded CCECC the $8.3b rail modernisation contract. Nwankwo said the NRC management was shut out of the multi-billion dollar deal as all the negotiations were handled by the Presidency. The railway modernisation project was the consummation of a so-called bilateral and technical cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Lin Rongxin, president of CCECC glibly assured at the signing ceremony of the firm’s commitment to completing the job on schedule.

Three years after and billions of dollars siphoned into private pockets, Nigerians have come to grips with the fact that Rongxin’s words were a ruse. Bio explained that the Chinese government’s failure to make good its promise on giving Nigeria a $2.5b concessionary loan for the project has stalled it. He said the Chinese government only released $500 million and told the federal government to source the balance of $2b from Chinese banks at the prevailing interest rate in China. The Nigerian government is under obligation to pay between $1.1b and $1.4b should it cancel the rail contract. The contract is being reviewed at the Ministry of Transport. There are indications it would be cancelled notwithstanding the initial payment of $250m to the CCECC and the scare of the billion-dollar penalty. Ministry officials are accusing the Chinese government, owner of CCECC, of insincerity in the deal. Bio informed that due process was not followed in the award of the contract. He wondered why the same firm was contracted to design, bring the bill of quantity, construct and supervise the project without the engagement and involvement of government’s consultants.

Preliminary work that CCECC did which included aerial surveys and designs, geo-technical arrangements for bridges and alignment were calculated to have amounted to not more than a paltry eight per cent of the contract sum. Robert Ejanavi, former Auditor-General of the Federation said at a public hearing on transportation that a total of N124.9b was spent on rail projects between 1999 and 2008. He cited an instance where a contractor was paid $250m as mobilisation fee but curiously a payment of $175m was made into his foreign account while the balance of $75m was paid into his account in Nigeria. Again, another contractor who was paid $1.5m had no record with the Ministry of Finance to indicate money was paid to him. Even the NRC could not ascertain that money was paid to the contractor. The consultant for the project, TEEM Nigeria Limited demanded to be paid N1.135b while Julius Berger asked for N6.45b. Bio disclosed that from the N135b which had been disbursed, Julius Berger got N122.7b while TEEM got N12.3b. The House of Representatives has also been probing the CCECC contract. The legislators summoned Professor Chukwuma Soludo, former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and Mansur Muktar, Minister of Finance over the white elephant. “I am not expecting anything punitive from all these investigations. They are as dead and futile exercises as the rail system they are trying to probe,” declared Inyang Edwards,” a mechanical engineer.