Nigeria’s Minister of Trasportation, Ahmed Alkali has urged the contractor and consultant handling rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Eastern Narrow Gauge railway line to ensure that train operations from Port Harcourt to Aba must start by April as agreed.
Senator Alkali gave this ultimatum during his second inspection of the project and readiness of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, NRC to start train operations from Port Harcourt in South-South Nigeria to Maiduguri in North-East Nigeria.
Minister briefed journalists on the efforts made by the Federal Government in ensuring that the project was delivered in record time and frowned at the fact that train services were yet to commence.
When the Minister was asked the reasons for delay in the ongoing construction of rail lines across the country, he attributed it to official bottlenecks in finance mobilisation as the project was initiated by the previous administration.
You will recall that the management of the Nigerian Railway Corporation and the contractor handling the project had earlier promised the completion of the Port Harcourt-Aba route of the rail line before the end of March.
(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
