President Muhammadu Buhari
has given the directive that all the 36 state capitals should be connected with
rail in the ongoing railway projects. ‘We deserve less-crowded coaches, faster
trains’ The Minister of Transportation, Mr, Chibuike Amaechi, said this on
Thursday at the meeting with the Chairman Senate Committee on Local and Foreign
Debts, Sen. Shehu Sani. The meeting also attended by the Ministers of Finance;
Budget and National Planning; and Power, Works and Housing was in connection
with President Buhari’s loan request of 5.5 billion dollars. Amaechi said the
central rail line project connecting several communities of northern and
southern Nigeria would be completed in June, next year. According to him, 17
coaches are expected to arrive in November and out of the number, 10 will be
deployed to Abuja-Kaduna rail line while the remaining seven will be deployed
to the Itakpe-Warri rail line. Amaechi said that part of the money being
requested now for approval by the senate was to execute the rail projects
covering Kano-Kaduna, and Lagos-Ibadan networks. Sani had earlier advised if
Nigeria “must borrow, it must borrow responsibly”. Sani said: “the committee
has the mandate to examine the merits and otherwise of the current loan request
of 5.5 billion dollars of the president. “If we must bequeath to the future
generation a pile of debt, it must be justified with commensurate
infrastructural proof of the value of the debt. “The payment plan of this debt
will undoubtedly last the length of our lifetimes and possibly beyond. “We must
leave behind a legacy that will appease and answer the questions the next
generation of Nigerians will ask,” Sani said. Also providing insight into the
loan request, the Director-General, Debt Management Office, Mrs Patience Oniha,
explained that the loans have sustainable benefits that would live beyond the
present generation of Nigerians. “What we should take away is that we are going
into projects whose benefits don’t go away. “The roads don’t go away, the
schools don’t go away, and the hospitals don’t go away but all that we need to
do is to maintain them properly and that is the explanation I want to make on
that,” she said.
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