China-Africa: China to Spend N464 Billion on Nigeria Railway
The Federal Government is to spend $4 billion in a bid to revive railway transportation in the country as part of efforts to have an effective means of land transportation that will meet up with President Yar’Adua’s seven point agenda, Minister of Transportation Mrs. Diezani Allison Madueke said in Abuja yesterday.
The minister, who disclosed this while addressing a high powered delegation from the Peoples Republic of China led by the country’s Vice Minister of Commerce Mr. Chen Jian, said the project is expected to commence in four months time.
The minister said due to the rapid development of Nigeria’s economy, its overall transportation capacity cannot meet her demands, which constitutes a bottleneck to economic development. Therefore the only way to solve the insufficient transportation problem is to build a modern railway system, she said
“in order to ascertain the strategic importance of modern railway in Nigeria’s socio economic development there is need for us to try and deepen cooperation in railways and transfer of technology and I am very glad to say that we are in the process of modernization of railway,” she said
Mrs Madueke however said the visit marks the beginning of a new era in terms of infrastructural relationship as many such discussions would subsequently hold in areas of railway, roads and other transportation sub sectors such as the maritime, aviation and in the generic of transfer of technology to areas of procedural and process management.
She said the project would be financed through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) and other concessionary forms of investment and “by the end of the day we would be able to stand with pride because we would see on both sides through the reflection of value for money and see projects that have been instituted and stand the test of time for ourselves and the Peoples Republic of China.” She said vision 2020 cannot be a reality without adequate land transportation and railway modernization.
On his part, Mr. Chen Jian said that the mission of the Chinese government to Nigeria is because the two countries have for many years had strong bilateral relationship in many areas that border on economic issues. The Chinese vice minister said that “based on the contentious issues worked out, we should bear in mind the preconditions that would benefit the people, the cooperation is not only a single activity but a lot of factors such as technology, capital and management is required. Actually, I believe the benefit of this process is to broaden the vision and by the time we conclude the railway project, we also have to think of how to maintain the project, therefore we must establish a joint venture that would be responsible for maintenance of the project. If this is done we would counter the problem of transfer of technology.”
(allAfrica)