The Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has said former<\/p>\n
President Olusegun Obasanjo and erstwhile Minister of the territory,
\nMallam Nasir El-Rufai, awarded the Abuja Rail Project in 2007 at an
\ninflated cost by millions dollars.<\/p>\n
The committee also said the project was awarded based on uncalculated
\nestimates with neither a design nor Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with
\nthe Chinese firm, CCE, handling it.<\/p>\n
Accordingly, the committee led by Senator Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi West),
\nhas demanded the refund of the sum of $195,878,296.74 being the sum
\nallegedly funneled into private pockets.<\/p>\n
The committee said the contract, which stood at 60.67 kilometres, was
\ninflated by ten million dollars per kilometres even as the original length
\nof the project was later reduced to 45 kilometres without refund of the
\ncost for the 15.67 kilometres cut off.<\/p>\n
Addressing the committee during inspection of the work in Abuja Monday,
\nProject Manager of the company, Etim Abak, said the contract was signed by
\nthe then FCT Minister without design and MOU, saying it was carried out
\nbased on what he simply identified as conceptual design.<\/p>\n
El-rufai who served as FCT Minister under Obasanjo is currently the
\nGovernor of Kaduna State under the All Progressives Congress (APC).<\/p>\n
Abak said: \u201cThe contract was awarded based on conceptual design and
\nestimates were not properly done. There was no formal design submitted and
\nrail bridges and crossover bridges were not captured in the contract, \u201che
\ntold the committee.<\/p>\n
Chairman of the committee, Senator Dino Melaye, while speaking at the
\nsite, said his research showed that rail project was inflated by over ten
\nmillion dollars per kilometre, wondering why such corrupt act was
\nperpetrated by the handlers of the project.<\/p>\n
Melaye who said the entire project was shrouded in fraud, noted that the
\ncontract sum was 841.645,898 dollars with project completion period put at
\n48 months.<\/p>\n
He further noted that the scope of work was 60.67km standard gauge, with
\ndouble railway tracks and associated permanent way within FCT, .<\/p>\n
He expressed worries that the project, which length initially stood at
\n60.67 kilometres, was later reduced to 45. 245 kilometres without
\nreduction in the cost of the project initially paid for.<\/p>\n
He said: \u2018Now, you have reduced the length of the kilometre standard gauge
\nfrom 60.67 kilometres to 45.245 kilometres, meanwhile, there is no
\nconcomitant reduction if you juxtapose the length of kilometres and the
\nreduction in terms of the cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we are to spend 841 million dollars for 60.67 kilometres and now you
\nhave reduced to 45.245 kilometres and the only reduction in terms of
\nmonetary value is from 841.6 million dollars to 823 million and with
\nreduction of just about 17 million dollars, that to me is not commensurate
\nto the reduction in terms of length.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Federal Government has so far invested 31.5 billion dollars and
\nanother 7.6 billion from the SURE-P fund and if you put these together, we
\nhave altogether 39.1 billion dollars invested in the rail project, leaving
\nthe balance of 113. 233,155.32 dollars.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sum of three billion dollars proposed in the 2016 national budget of
\nthe FCT for the rail project.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at this, I would want to say that I did a personal research
\nand looked at rail construction of the same specifics, of the same
\ntechnology across the globe and one cannot but complain that this railway
\nproject in Nigeria\u00a0 is on a very high side.\u201d<\/p>\n
He questioned the rational behind the government\u2019s loan of 500 million
\ndollars from Exim Bank of China for the project, saying the money the
\nfederal government had so far injected into the project was far enough to
\nexecute the entire project.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom my own calculation, in fact, from my comparison with other rail
\nprojects across the world,\u00a0 the federal government investment in this
\nproject is enough to execute the project without taking a loan as high as
\n500 million dollars from China.<\/p>\n
Melaye, who spoke further said: \u201d From our research and it\u2019s very simple,
\nthe world is now a global village. As you are sitting here now, on your
\nphone you can google, even in India and Egypt. Fortunately, one of those
\nprojects in Zambia was also done by this same company, CCE.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have six countries and the average cost per kilometre, non is above
\nfour million dollars per kilometre. Why is the Nigerian project is costing
\n13.8 approximately 14 million dollars per kilometre.\u201d<\/p>\n
OrderPaper.ng<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has said former President Olusegun Obasanjo and erstwhile Minister of the territory, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, awarded the Abuja Rail Project in 2007…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n