The Federal Government has committed about $3.1 billion out of its foreign loans to various railways and airports construction and rehabilitation projects in the past eight years.
While the present administration has borrowed $1.6 billion to fast-track the completion of the various projects nationwide so far, the previous administration took $1.4 billion loans for the execution of the airports’ facilities upgrade and the Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge railway lines.
The loan for the airports projects was $500 million and the Abuja-Kaduna rail line project had $800 million borrowed loan to finance it.
The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, who gave some hints on past and current foreign loans being committed to various projects being handled by his ministry, explained that $1bn loan was secured to complete the Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge rail line.
According to him, government is also working out plans for the commencement of the proposed new Ibadan-Kaduna rail line, which will be handled by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, in furtherance of its efforts to ease transportation across the geo-political zones.
The minister explained: “We borrowed $1.6bn for the Lagos-Ibadan railway project. But if you add the ones we met in my ministry, I think they borrowed $500m for aviation, which is for the four international airports in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano.
“They also borrowed $500m to do the Kaduna-Abuja rail and the total figure then was about $800m and the total work brought it to about $1bn.
“We are funding this (Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri) project and we funded the completion of the Abuja-Kaduna rail. So, you can see that the government is frugal,” Amaechi added.
Speaking further on the construction of the Ibadan-Kaduna rail, he hinted that the government was working to raise about $6.7 billion loan for the project from the China Exim Bank which had been helping the government in previous loan requests.
The minister, who restated the government’s determination to flag off the project this year and fast-track the completion of ongoing projects, said that his ministry was making strong demand for the loan to be secured such that the President could help make a case for it when he visits China.
He clarified further: “We’ve signed the contract but we’ve not got the loan. What is important is the loan, which is a bit difficult but we are pushing hard. If we get the loan, then they (CCECC) will start this year because we are pushing hard. Honestly, it is one of the items I’m putting before the President for consideration.
“The loan is supposed to be about $6.7bn. But when we met with the China Exim Bank, they wanted us to reduce it. However, we will put it before the President so that he too can make a case for it when he goes to China.
“We met the Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri rail line abandoned and we are completing it. Our initial target is that they (contractors) must leave site in June and now we’ve agreed and Julius Berger is leaving site in August.
“The CCECC is where we have some problems; they are trying to say that the contract is till 2019, but we are insisting that they must complete it much earlier. You can imagine the level of commercial activities that will take place when this is completed, the jobs it will create and how it will reduce the pressure on our roads”, the minister added.
