Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Narrow Gauge Project Poorly Done – Minister

• Minister of Transportation Senator Alkali expressed disappointment over the poor quality of work and slow progress on the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri rail project
• He criticized the contractor for laying rail tracks by hand and not contributing the required counterpart funding to the project

Senator Said Ahmed Alkali, Minister of Transportation, has condemned the poor quality of work in the ongoing Port Harcourt-Maiduguri reconstruction and rehabilitation of the eastern narrow gauge project.

Senator Alkali, who spoke to journalists shortly after inspecting the project in Port Harcourt, expressed disappointment with the low quality of materials used, claiming that the contractor was laying the rail tracks by hand.

He was enraged that the contractor had yet to contribute its quota of counterpart funding to the project, which is jointly sponsored by the federal government and the China Civil Engineering and Construction Company (CCECC), while the federal government had committed about 15% of the contract sum.

I am disappointed in what I have seen because this contract was signed for 36 months and it is to cover over 2000km. So far, the Port Harcourt to Aba is around 47 per cent. Ideally, it is supposed to cover 47per cent of the entire 2000km, which by now we should be around Plateau or so, yet we are still struggling to be in Abia before the end of the year, he said.

Abuja-Lagos Highway Ready In 2027 – FG

The Federal Government has promised that the proposed Abuja-Lagos motorway will be finished in four years.

At a conference on Saturday, Minister of Works David Umahi provided the guarantee.

On the new route, he said that the trip from Lagos to Abuja will take four hours.

He claimed that since concrete is less expensive than asphalt, the entire road would be made with it.