interview with CNBC yesterday the American company General Electric
has concrete plans to event about $2 billion in the country's railway
sector. He also said that the Federal government was looking for
investment from both private and public partnership deals as a source
to fund improvements in the transport sector.
As for the private investment, General Electric an American
multinational conglomerate based in new york will be pumping in 2
billion dollars to revive the Lagos-Kano gauge, and Port Harcourt
Maidugiri narrow gauge.
The former governor of Rivers State said:
"It is good that such kind of funds will come into
the economy, it will create employment, it will
increase business and everybody will be part of
the process."
He also added that the arrangement will ensure that much stress
is taken off the shoulders of the federal government. This is because,
the government will not be funding the rail projects, but will only
initiate them, and the investors will take over. President Buhari will
be flagging of the Lagos-Kano line by july and by the end of this
year, the Lagos Ibadan section of the line should have been
constructed.
A loan has also been procured from a Chinese bank, and the
condition for the loan is that one of the contractors will have to
come from China. And the minister for transport has disclosed that the
services of CCECC(China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation).
The total cost for the line should be about 3.5 billion dollars, and
minister says there are plans to employ as many people as possible for
the work. The construction should span a period of about three years.
Rotimi Amaechi also disclosed that the government was still
expecting the bulk of the $160 billion dollars needed to renovate the
Nation's transport sector. And so, plans were being made to invites as
many investors as possible to the podium.
According to him, Nigeria has a very big market that favours
investors a lot, and it wouldn't take time for investors to get back
there money once the system has started working. The new rail system
will be dual purpose, both passenger and freight transportation.
Ameachi also added the the Federal government had also made
efforts to cut down on costs and save money by negotiating some of the
deals saving up almost 1 billion dollars.
''We negotiated that one from $11.97 billion to $
11.17 billion, saving the country $800million.''
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