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| Obasanjo |
The
Project Manager of a Chinese civil engineering and construction company, Etim
Abak, on Monday told the Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory that
former President Olusegun Obasanjo awarded the Abuja Rail Project in 2007
without an engineering design or a Memorandum of Understanding.
The
Minister of FCT and current governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai,
allegedly signed the $841.645,898m contract based on an uncalculated estimate.
The
committee was also told that the contract, which was for 60.67-kilometre rail
project, was inflated by $10m per km and that the length was later reduced to
45km without refund of the cost for the 15.67 km that was dropped off from the
project.
The
Senate committee, led by Dino Melaye, who were at the site of the project to
carry out oversight functions, therefore, demanded the refund of
$195,878,296.74 being the amount for the 15.67km that was cut out, from the
Chinese firm handling the project.
Abak
told senators that the contract was signed by the then FCT minister without
design and MoU, and that it was carried out based on conceptual design.
Abak
said, “The contract was awarded based on conceptual design and estimates were
not properly done. There was no formal design submitted and rail bridges and
crossover bridges were not captured in the contract.”
Melaye
said his findings revealed that the rail project was inflated by over $10m per
km and wondered why such an act was perpetrated by the handlers of the project.
The
senator added that the contract sum was $841.645,898m and that the project
completion period was 48 months while the scope of work was 60.67km standard
gauge, with double railway tracks and associated permanent way within the FCT.
He
wondered why the 60.67km project was later reduced to 45. 245km without
reduction in its cost.
He
said, “Now, you have reduced the length of the standard gauge from 60.67km to
45.245km, meanwhile, there is no concomitant reduction if you juxtapose the
length in kilometres and the reduction in terms of the cost.
“If
we are to spend $841m for 60.67km and now you have reduced to 45.245km and the
only reduction in terms of monetary value is from $841.6m to $823m and with a
reduction of just about $17m, that to me is not commensurate to the reduction
in terms of length.
“The
Federal Government has so far invested N31.5bn and another N7.6bn from the
SURE-P fund and if you put these together, we have altogether N39.1bn invested
in the rail project, leaving the balance of N113. 233,155.32.
“The
N3bn proposed in the 2016 national budget for the FCT was for the rail project.
If you look at this, I would want to say that I did a personal research and
looked at rail construction of the same specifics, of the same technology
across the globe and one cannot but complain that the cost of railway project
in Nigeria is on a very high side.”
He
wondered why it was costing the Federal Government so much to construct a
railway of just 45 km unlike the construction of the same specifics across the
globe.
He
questioned the rationale behind the government’s loan of $500m from Exim Bank
of China for the project, saying that the money which the Federal Government
had so far injected into the project was enough to execute the entire project.
He
said, “From my own calculation, in fact, from my comparison with other rail
projects across the world, the Federal Government investment in this project is
enough to execute the project without taking a loan as high as $500m from
China.
“From
our research and it’s very simple, the world is now a global village. As you
are sitting here now, on your phone you can google, even in India and Egypt.
“Fortunately,
one of those projects in Zambia was also done by this same company, CCE.
We
have six countries and the average cost per km, none is above $4m per km. Why
is the Nigerian project costing $13.8m approximately $14m?”
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