The China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) has been accused by the minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, for the delay in the completion of the ongoing construction of the Lagos-Ibadan Standard Gauge rail line. The minister attributed the delay to the slow pace of work of CCECC.
In a statement during the inspection of the progress of the work done on Monday, 8th April, 2019 by CCECC, the minister expressed disappointment and chided the contractor for slowing down work and track-laying from Distance Kilometre (DK) 121 to 157 of the Lagos-Ibadan rail line project.
According to Rotimi Amaechi, “The federal government plans to commence transportation of cargoes from the sea ports through the standard rail gauge by December, 2019.
He lamented the slow pace of work by the company by saying, “Since you came to this segment of the project, you have not done anything here.”
He drew the attention of those with him at the inspection by saying, “To those of you who are here with me on this inspection, did you see any work going on? There is no work at all.”
“From Kilometre 121 to 157, there is no work at all; and you have no reason whatsoever not to have worked, because we are not owing you. “You are doing no job, absolutely no job.”
Amaechi stated that he is going to present the issue at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and told the company that the project will be a subject of discussion at its next meeting at the FEC.
The minister said he was dissatisfied with the contractor, saying the company had failed to implement the affected section of the project as earlier discussed with them at a previous meeting. According to him, the federal government has paid its own counterpart fund for the project.
He stressed that the CCECC had no acceptable reason to tender for its inaction, since there was no funding problem on execution of the contract. The minister, however, said that the contractor had pleaded for more time to meet the May deadline for the delivery date of the project.
