The Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC), through its Project Manager, Mr. Etim Abak has told the Senate committee that the Former President Olusegun Obasanjo awarded the $842m Abuja Rail Project in 2007 with neither a design nor a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
The then Minister of FCT and current governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, was said to have signed the contract based on an uncalculated estimate. The revelation came as the committee discovered the contract, which stood at 60.67 kilometres, was inflated by $10 million (about N2 billion at N200 per dollar) per kilometre even as the length was later reduced to 45 kilometres without the refund of the cost for the 15.67 kilometres dropped.
Mr. Abak said the contract was signed by the then FCT minister without design and MOU, saying it was carried out based on what he simply identified as a conceptual design. “The contract was awarded based on a conceptual design and estimates were not properly done. There was no formal design submitted and rail bridges and crossover bridges were not captured in the contract, “he told the committee.
According to him, the contract sum was $841.645,898 and project completion period was 48 months while the scope of work was 60.67km standard gauge, with double railway tracks and associated permanent way within FCT.
The Committee Chairman, Senator Dino Melaye alleged that whole project may be shrouded in fraud, wondered why the project, whose length initially stood at 60.67 kilometres was later reduced to 45.245 without cut in the cost of the project initially paid for.
Melaye wondered why it was costing the Federal Government so much to construct a railway of just 45 kilometres unlike the construction of the same specifics across the globe. He also questioned the rationale behind the government’s loan of $500 million from Exim Bank of China for the project, saying the money the Federal Government had so far injected into the project was far enough to execute the entire project.
“From my own calculation, in fact, from my comparison with other rail projects across the world, the Federal Government’s investment in this project is enough to execute the project without taking a loan as high as $500 million from China. Fortunately, one of those projects in Zambia was also done by this same company, CCECC,” Melaye said.
Senator Dino Melaye has demanded the refund of the of $195,878,296.74 ( about N392 billion at N200 per dollar) being the amount for the 15.67 kilometres cut out from the Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC)
