Oil pipelines stalling completion of Apapa seaport rail link - minister

... apologises on locomotive breakdown

Minister for transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has said oil pipelines along the corridor is causing slow pace of work on Apapa seaport rail link.

Speaking at a monthly inspection on Monday, the transportation minister said, “We are working from both sides, from the Ebutte Metta end of the Nigerian Railway Corporation and Apapa Port end. There is a problem with NNPC pipelines at ijora.

“We’re talking with NNPC and Oil Sever, which is the contractor, they need to move the pipelines, and to complete the construction will take a while.”

Amaechi said the pace of work has slowed down, but Covid-19 is no longer an excuse, as we have worked over three, four months and have not lost anybody.

According to Amaechi, ‘’The permanent secretary, managing director and board chairman and I agree that the technical committee should meet with them to ensure that they put, not policies, but measures will ensure that the best of what is increased that by the next time we come here for inspection, we’ll see that as a huge improvement.

“I said the cost of the contract was $1.6 billion. But between Warri and Itakpe, whether we have to ask for about $650 million, for extra work that has been approved a long time, just the necessity to do that. I’m not asking for fresh money for this,” he said.

He also said locomotives on Abuja-kaduna rail route that have broken down up to two times would be returned to China, explaining that the locomotives had a warranty of over four years, and the government was considering returning them to China.

The minister explained that it was unreasonable to keep repairing the locomotives since their warranty was still valid, as this would affect the number of times the train run on the route.