Rose Moses
There is displeasure over misrepresentations of facts on railway contracts Nigeria and Ghana entered into with construction giants, China Railway Construction Corporation Ltd.
CRCC’s Managing Director, Mr. Dou Yisou; Managing Director of its Ghanaian local content partners, Lakeland Group, Mr. Henry Djaba and Ghana’s Minister of Railways, Joe Ghartey, who expressed concern over how the respective contracts are being used in some quarters for political purposes in Nigeria, described the comparison of Nigeria’s Lagos-Ibadan rail project with that of Ghana as unfair.
They maintained that there is no basis for comparing the differences in the costs of the projects, in view of the circumstances under which each contract was reached by each of the countries.
Recent reports on the proposed construction of 560km Ghana Railway line at the cost of $2.2 billion has prompted critics to compare it with Nigeria’s 146 km rail contract put at the same cost. The cost for the Lagos-lbadan rail project was therefore viewed as exorbitant and three times more expensive compared to the costs of the two rail projects being proposed in Ghana.
But Djaba Jnr described the comparison as unfair, arguing that there is no basis for comparing the differences in the costs of the projects in view of the circumstances under which each contract was reached by each country.
Though the reports seem to have unsettled some officials of the Nigerian Ministry of Transport, while some have cashed on it to tarnish the image of former Minister of Transport, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, insiders in the ministry, say it is wrong to put the blame on Amaechi’s table as the contract was actually negotiated during the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
“It is unfair to now criticise Amaechi for the maladministration of the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, under whose watch the award of the contract for the Lagos-Ibadan railway line commenced at a very high cost, considered by many to be very uncompetitive,” explained a Transport Ministry source.
Those close to Amaechi say the critics failed to understand that the Lagos-Ibadan railway project was inherited by the Muhammadu Buhari administration from the Jonathan administration, and as with other infrastructural projects inherited by the Buhari government, the focus has been to complete them.
It was gathered that the first difference between the cost of the Ghana rail construction cost and that of Nigeria is that the Lagos-Ibadan project is greenfield and a particularly challenging construction, whereas the Ghana project is partly rehabilitation and partly construction.
The other differences are that the different funding arrangements have impacted on the relative costs of the projects and the fact that the Nigerian project was an uncompleted project by the previous government.
Ghana’s Minister of Railways, Joe Ghartey, who gave a clear picture and correct position of his country’s arrangement on the rail project, said CRCC has offered to rehabilitate and construct a 560km standard gauge railway line in Ghana at $2 billion, whereas 340km standard gauge railway to be constructed by Ghanaian–European Railway Consortium (GERC) will cost $2.2 billion.
This means that the Lagos-Ibadan 146-kilometer railway line was awarded at $1.5 billion, which is not three times the costs of the Ghanaian projects as may have been suggested.
