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JONAS EZIEKE, Abuja
The House of Representatives Committee on Public Assets and Special Duties has issued a 7-day ultimatum to the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) to submit all relevant documents on all current Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) in the corporation.
The House probe panel made the demand in Abuja at a public hearing on the need to investigate and assess the performance of PPP programmes and concession.
The Chairman of the committee, Hon. Ademorin Kuye said that the ultimatum became necessary following failure of the corporation to submit the documents as earlier requested.
He said that all documents on all agreements related to each asset of PPP and programmes, concessions, lease agreements with commencement date should be submitted.
Kuye (APC, Lagos) said that documents on evidence of remittances to the Special Concession Account, income profile from PPPs/Concession/Lease, and specific achievements recorded by the period under reference should be tendered.
The chairman asked the management to ender documents and evidence of advertisement of PPPs/concession/lease and expression of interests on the leases.
According to him, the committee is also interested in document on the challenges, problems,constraints of mandate implementation and recommendations for improvement
Kuye said that a sworn affidavit attesting that the documents/information submitted are true should also be attached.
He said that the committee would like to see the budget performance of the corporation from 2021 to date.
According to him, they need to see items budgeted for and the level of implementation on all projects in the forth coming oversight.
The chairman also demanded a detailed report from the NRC on a trending video which showed yet-to-be identified individual carting away assets from one of the train stations in the country.
Kuye said that information available to the committee suggests that such criminal activities were allegedly carried out in Niger, Bauchi Nasarawa, Lagos among other states of the country.
He said that the committee will do all that is required to ensure perpetrators and their accomplices are made to answer for their actions.
“Failure to submit these documents and reports on or before December 11 2024 would force the committee to invoke its constitutional powers against the NRC,” he said.
Responding, the acting Managing Director of NRC, Mr Benjamin Iloanusi apologised to the committee for not submitting all the required documents earlier.
He blamed the failure on miscommunication saying that they submitted documents in accordance to the earlier letter received.
Iloanusi, however, appealed for some time to enable the corporation submit detailed documents as requested by the committee.
He also urged the committee to share the trending video to enable him carry out an internal investigation with a view to location the station and the individuals involved.
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The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has expressed confidence that herders and traders will soon move their cows from the North to the Southern part of Nigeria using rail services.
Managing Director of NRC, Fidet Okhiria, disclosed this in an interview with Channels Television as monitored by LEADERSHIP, on Wednesday.
Okhiria said rail services for the movement of cows and other goods would resume with the Warri-Itakpe route.
LEADERSHIP recalls that the NRC had in 2017 suspended the movement of cattle by train after some technical hitches.
However, Okhiria said in a matter of one or two months, herders would be able to move their cattle on the Warri-Itakpe train services.
He said the NRC would modernise the movement of goods in the country “so that when they come by road from the north, they can move them by rail to South-South Warri”.
Okhiria added that the NRC has brought in some wagons that can mobilise livestock and they are being assembled in the Kajola area of Oyo State.
“We’ve built 15 wagons for livestock and maybe in the next month or two months, they would be deployed from Itakpe to Warri to drive the economy,” he stated.
Okhiria also said investment in railways should be for the social and economic benefits of the people and not profit-oriented in naira and kobo.
“You are not developing transportation because you want to make profit in terms of naira and kobo, but the profit will come indirectly if we can move goods and link cities,” he said.
According to him, the indirect earnings might not be directly to the government but it would flow into the economy.
Okhiria added that investment in rail infrastructure should be for the public good and to make lives comfortable for the masses to have a robust and vibrant economy.