Rotimi Amaechi, minister of
transportation, says the Abuja-Kaduna rail line cannot run faster than 90
kilometres per hour because the ministry does not want locomotives killing
cows.
The minister highlighted the
complications the federal government has had to deal with in making rail
concessions, stating that the concession with General Electric (GE) fell apart
after the company was sold its rail business.
Amaechi, who spoke about local
problems being faced by the rail system said Nigeria has more than enough to
transport via rail, before stating restrictions caused by cows.
“The reason why we wat to go back
to narrow gauge is because between Lagos and Kano, we have 30 million tonnes of
cargo. Even if you do three rail lines, it cannot be enough,” Amaechi said.
“It took us 14 days to move
coaches from Lagos to Abuja; everyday we go and ask, how far, they say we are
near Ogun state… 14 days.
“But if it were rail, the same
day, it will get to Abuja. The kind of construction we are doing is 120
kilometres per hour (Km/h), it is a speed train.
“We are doing 90km/h with Abuja
to Kaduna, the reason we are doing 90km/h is because there are cows everywhere,
and we don’t want to kill cows. The other day they tried 100 and they killed
how many cows, and they said ‘you people should replace the cows you killed.
“From that day, I have said let
us maintain the 90km/h; at 120km/h you get to Kaduna in one hour. You can work
in Kaduna and live in Abuja. It was initially one, but now, we have done four
locomotives with 14 coaches.”
FG SUBSIDISING RAIL TRANSPORT
The minister also revealed that
the federal government is paying as much as N40million in subsidies every
month.
“We are still under pressure to
have more locomotives and more coaches beacuse more people are now using the
rail. But you know typical Nigerians, they like free things,” he added.
“We spend N56million per
locomotive, and we get N16millon. If we increase it, you will start abusing us,
‘we won’t vote for this people’. But you see, it is subsidised, so you big men,
government is subsidising you, that is why you should vote for us, because you
are sharing the money.
“At the end of the day, we lose
every month N40million, in fact it was worse initially, because it was N600 per
passenger and nearly N1,000 for business class.
“I was grateful because it was
the passengers — both poor and rich — who said increase the price, increase the
cost, but whatever it is, we have not been able to break even.”
He says maybe the next minister
of transportation will be able to raise the prices for the rail service to
break even.
This people can lie. The devil has lost his place as the father of lies.
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