The Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, on Friday ordered stoppage of work at Omi-Adio Railway Station under construction on Lagos-Ibadan standard guage rail line over compromise of standards by the contractor.<\/p>\n
Amaechi Gave the directive when he got to the station during his monthly routine inspection tour of the ongoing project which he commenced from Lagos in company of others.<\/p>\n
According to him, the observation of non-usage of stone for flooring at the station is one of the benefits of continuous inspection the project. \u201cOne of the benefits of this inspection is what is happening here now. Now, the contractor has been seeing to be doing very poor quality job in this station.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe say stop and they have to start afresh.\u201cThe implication is that if we didn\u2019t stop here like we didn\u2019t at Olodo (rail station), we won\u2019t know what they are doing. If we didn\u2019t stop here, they would have properly laid this things and proceeded.\u201d<\/p>\n
The minister said that he had directed the consultant to ensure that there would be a consulting staff, who is an engineer, in every station to ensure quality.<\/p>\n
He said that the consultant must be on ground in each of the station always and not on visiting basis.<\/p>\n
On progress in track laying, Amaechi said that the contractor had met the Federal Government\u2019s target, but must work harder on construction of stations for speedy delivery.<\/p>\n
According to him, there is the need to speed up work on stations and deliver it by February which is the government timeline.<\/p>\n
He said that the argument of contractor was to deliver by April 2020, but the government\u2019s argument was that they needed more hands and equipment to complete on time.<\/p>\n
Amaechi, who noted that the track laying had reached 156km, expressed worry about the pace of work at Agege axis and the extension to Apapa port.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to speed up and be able to decongest Apapa. We cannot decongest Apapa if they don\u2019t get there on time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Amaechi said that the delay in completing the 10 minor and major railway stations along the rail line was becoming more embarrassing, especially in December.<\/p>\n
He said that his next inspection in January would start from Ebute-Metta to Apapa to see the level of work there.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter how fast we are to Ibadan, if we don\u2019t link Ebute-Metta to the sea port, then it is useless. We really have to decongest the sea port,\u201d Amaechi said..<\/p>\n
On Ibadan-Kano standard guage rail line, the minister said that he was sure that the loan for the project would be signed between January and February 2020.<\/p>\n
On the limited number of coaches for the free ride from Iju in Lagos and Moniya in Ibadan flagged of on Nov. 29 and commenced on Dec. 2, Amaechi urged the people to manage the two coaches till January.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy January we will increase the number of coaches to about 12 to 13 to carry more passengers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the track laying has moved from Iju Station to around Agege and that work was still ongoing in Lagos axis and in Ibadan axis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, on Friday ordered stoppage of work at Omi-Adio Railway Station under construction on Lagos-Ibadan standard guage rail line over compromise of standards by the contractor. Amaechi Gave the directive when he got to the station during his monthly routine inspection tour of the ongoing project which he commenced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":2224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[250,176],"class_list":["post-19176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-amaechi","tag-nan"],"yoast_head":"\n