Skip to main content

President Buhari To Probe $1billion Loan For Rail Projects


President Muhammed Buhari Monday in Abuja called for an explanation from the Ministry of Finance on the foreign loans obtained for rail projects but diverted to other purposes.
Speaking at the end of a presentation on the Ministry of Transport by the Permanent Secretary, Mohammed Bashar at the Presidential Villa, President Buhari said that it was disappointing to find that foreign loans obtained in line with signed agreements were moved from one project to another.
“I hope that due process was followed before such diversions were carried out. Taking money from one project to another has to be done properly,” Garba Shehu, his senior special assistant on media and publicity, quoted the President as saying.
Mr. Buhari was reacting to the specific instance of the diversion of a substantial part of the loan of USD1.005 billion from the Chinese Exim Bank, obtained for the construction of a standard gauge rail line linking Lagos to Kano but which was moved elsewhere.
The permanent secretary had informed the President that only USD 400 million of that loan remained with the Ministry of Finance.
The president regretted that government had, over the years, failed to meet its counter-part funding obligation on some projects, leading to such projects being left uncompleted or abandoned.
He added that there was a clear need to streamline, harmonize, and prioritize on-going projects in the transportation sector.
The permanent secretary of the ministry also briefed the president on other challenges facing the transport and maritime sectors such as encroachment on railway land, lack of security on inland waterways and the confused nature of agreements between the Nigeria Ports Authority and ports concessionaires.
The $1.1billion million agreement was signed in September 2012 between Nigeria and China Exim Bank.
The fund, according to the then Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was for the execution of three “high priority impact projects,” in the transport and Information Communication Technology sectors of the economy.
The projects, scheduled for completion in 2015, included the Abuja Light Rail, four airport terminals and the Galaxy Backbone ICT infrastructure.
Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala signed the agreement in Beijing, the Chinese capital, on behalf of Nigeria, while the Managing Director of China Exim Bank, Sun Ping, signed for the bank.
The minister said the construction of the light rail project handled by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) would gulp $500 million; the four state-of-the-art airport terminals to be located in Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt and Enugu would take $500million, while the Galaxy Backbone ICT infrastructure will take $100million.
Those who worked out the final details of the agreement with the officials of the Chinese bank included former Ministers of Aviation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Stella Oduah and Bala Mohammed respectively as well as the former Minister of State for Works, Bashir Yuguda; the Director-General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Abraham Nwankwo, and former Special Adviser to the President on Performance Monitoring and Evaluation, Sylvester Monye.
The light rail project was meant to help improve transportation for residents of the Federal Capital Territory, especially workers, while the backbone was to help improve service delivery in areas like education and health while empowering the youth with better connectivity to the rest of the world.
She said the four new airport terminals were to help create jobs and ensure that Nigerian air travellers enjoy good services.
The minister said the facility was obtained under a concessionary term of 2.5 per cent interest over 20 years, with a grace period of seven years.
One part of the intra-city rail network was to extend from the city centre to Kubwa and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, while the second would run from the city centre to Masaka in Nassarawa State.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

State House of Assembly collected bribes from commissioner nominees

An N2.4 million bribery scam is rocking the Delta State House of Assembly. SaharaReporters learned that the Speaker, Monday Igbuya, and other members of the State House of Assembly allegedly collected N200,000 bribes from the twelve commissioner nominees forwarded by Governor Ifeanyi Okowa for “screening.” Confiding in a SaharaReporters correspondent, a senior management staff person of the State’s House of Assembly who did not want to be named disclosed that one of the commissioner nominees told him in confidence how the twelve nominees’ arms were twisted to pay N200,000 each. The ultimatum was that without the N200,000 none of them would be cleared by the lawmakers. However, the source said, “If you were around during their screening on the floor of the House, you would have noticed that all the nominees were only told to take a bow” and to go. An aide to one of the commissioners who pleaded anonymity confided in SaharaReporters that the money was definitively give...
Post a Comment
Read more

PIONEER YOUTH MOVEMENT ORGANISED CAREER GUIDANCE & COUNSELLING PROGRAMME MAIDUGURI

A special Career Guidance and counseling programme held at Government Day Secondary Schools Mairi in Jere local government, Borno State, Nigeria in honour of Dr. Umar Alkali an education philanthropist. The programme was organised to encourage him and his likes in the society to scale up and be consistent in extending such gesture at this trying time. They offer scholarship to hundreds of tertiary institutions students. The central aim of the programme is to assist the young men and women make better decision of their future career, which would in long run address the problem of unemployment in the near future. Youth Movement is a youth led organisation that came into existence Two (2) years ago. We therefore decide to study the various problems in the society and weighing them with our capability, we decide to go for education sector which composes of Career Guidance and counselling campaign and also imbibing reading culture among students in the State which is our short-term goa...
Post a Comment
Read more

BUHARI: TURNING APPOINTMENTS INTO DISAPPOINTMENTS

   By Jaafar Jaafar Ponder over this Hausa proverb: “sawun keke ba’a gane gabanka”, which roughly translates to “a bicycle’s contact patch does not tell where it comes from or where it heads to”, and see how it aptly describes Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari. Bearing in mind the current realities in our polity, how would you, in your wildest dream, think the Secretary to the Government of the Federation will come from the North? The very North that has a President, a Senate President, a Speaker, a Head of Service, a Chief of Staff, a Chief Justice, and what not? While Mr. President is likened to the proverbial “sawun keke”, the pigmentation of his appointments may be likened to “birgimar hankaka”, literally meaning the wallow of a pied crow. When a pied crow wallows, the Hausa say, you will see both the white patch on its gullet and the black plumage that covers most of the bird’s body. In the appointment of the GMD of NNPC, President Buhari showed Nigeria...
1 comment
Read more