Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi has accused the China Civil Engineering Corporation ( CCECC) of playing politics with the construction of the Kaduna-Kano rail project.
The Minister made the claim during a routine inspection of the strategic rail project.
According to Amaechi, “Going by the pace of work, I think CCECC is beginning to play politics, they should move away from politics and focus on construction and I think they need to complete the Kaduna-kano rail. I will not say more than this until I meet with them on Monday.The speed is extremely slow, equipment is supposed to be over 2000 and all they have brought so far is 541. They claim that over 300 is in Kaduna, people have gone to check that.
“Even if you add that together, it will be about 800 equipment, 800 as compared to 2000 that they are supposed to bring is nothing and it means something is wrong somewhere.
“I know they will claim we have not funded them but part of their responsibility in the contract is to look for the money and CCECC has not brought money, the Chinese are no longer giving us money for more than three years to four years now. So, they cannot afford to delay it because it is their responsibility to look for the money.
On Portharcourt Maiduguri rail project, the minister said: “we have given them some money and we think they should start work. According to them, they said they will start building camps but for me who is not an engineer, camp does not matter to me, all i want to see is the laying of tracks, so on Wednesday, CCECC must tell us because they can not award contract to a company and the company goes to sleep.
“We have paid them some money for Port Harcourt Maiduguri, so they must tell us why they are not on site because you cannot say there is no land; it is an old track, so they must start work.
The Minister of Transportation assured to deliver the projects on schedule to the Nigerian people.
RN