The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved the sum of $328.87m as railway consultancy services. This amount represents about 165 billion in naira.
The FEC presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari also approved the concession of Onitsha River Port to Inversal Elysium Consortium for 30 years.
This was disclosed by the Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi when he briefed newsmen in Abuja.
Amaechi said his Ministry had presented two memos for sundry consultancy services on railway project supervision across the country, not management consultancy.
This is however coming when the Nigeria Railway Corporation(NRC) is reportedly seeking the sum of N61billion as maintenance cost with a hugely contrasting revenue figure of N1.13billion generated last year.
He identified the railway projects which are yet to start construction as Port Harcourt-Maiduguri, Kano-Maradi and Abuja-Warri.
A breakdown for the consultancy services sum shows that of $183.7m will go to GIX Engineers Infrastructure Excellence/Yaroso & Partnership Limited, Core Consulting Engineering Plc.
He added, “That’s for Abuja to Warri. For the consultancy services for the supervision of Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Railway, with branch lines to Bonny Deep Seaport and Port Harcourt Industrial Park and then to Owerri, We have Kyari Consults SDMBHD/Jamood Global Services Limited at $97.5m. The first one is $38.4m.
“Consultancy services for the supervision of Kano-Katsina-Jibia-Maradi rail-line was approved for Technics Engineering Architecture Marketing Nigeria Limited and that is for $47,670,000. All of them are for a period of 36 months.
The Minister also disclosed that the concession agreement has been approved for the Ministry of Transportation to concession the Onitsha River Port to a company called Inversal Elysium Consortium.
He said the firm will manage the river port for 30 years.
According to him, “The second one is that the cabinet approved a concessionaire agreement for the Ministry of Transportation to concession the Onitsha River Port to a company called Inversal Elysium Consortium. They are to manage the river port for 30 years.”
Meanwhile, the FEC also approved the sum of N115.4bn for the dualisation of Kano-Kazaure-Kongolam highway in Katsina State.
The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said the project covers 131.4 kilometers and will be completed in 48 months.
