The Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Ameachi ordered the stoppage of work at Omi-Adio Railway Station under construction on Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge rail line due to the use of inferior materials by the contractor.
The working minister gave the order when he visited the station on Friday, during his monthly routine inspection of the railway project that commenced in Lagos in company of other government officials.
His reason was because of non-usage of stone for flooring at the station. He however said that the essence of inspection of the project was to ensure that quality materials are used by contractors during the construction of the project.
According to him, “One 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.
“We say stop and they have to start afresh.“The implication is that if we didn’t stop here like we didn’t at Olodo (rail station), we won’t know what they are doing. If we didn’t stop here, they would have properly laid these things and proceeded.”
However, the minister also accords the contractor some praises, according to him, on progress in track laying, the contractors have scored some good points,the contractor had met the Federal Government’s target, but must work harder on construction of stations for speedy delivery.
Amaechi, also noted that the track laying had reached 156km, and expressed worry about the pace of work at Agege axis and the extension to Apapa port.
He further said that there’s a need to decongest Apapa, the delay in completing the 10 minor and major railway stations along the rail line was becoming more embarrassing, especially in December.
The long awaited loan for Ibadan-Kano standard gauge rail line project would be signed between January and February 2020, according to him.
The Minister assured the people that the entire project will be signed by 2020.
