The plan by the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) to deploy secure ticketing solutions for its rail services across the country is about to be completed, Daily Trust can report.
It would be recalled that the NRC had in August last year advertised for companies to apply for the ticketing contract following which over 1000 companies applied.
According to the advertorial, the contractors were to express interest for “Designing, Development, Deployment and Management of Secure Ticketing Solution on an investment basis for the NRC Rail Services”.
Daily Trust learnt that 12 companies were prequalified (shortlisted) having met the requirements prescribed by the corporation.
It is from the 12 shortlisted companies that those with the best proposals would be selected for commercials, according to the NRC Head of Procurement, Mr. Ben Iloanusi.
It was, however gathered that about two companies might be selected at the end of the day in line with the scope of the railway services cutting across the entire country.
Currently, the NRC runs train services across the country including the hugely patronized Abuja-Kaduna standard gauge service, the Lagos-Kano express train, passenger services within Lagos and Ogun axis, among others.
When completed, it is expected that the secure ticketing solutions would boost the revenue generation drive of the corporation and guard against any form of leakages while giving room for ample investment in the sector, a source said.
Speaking with newsmen last week when the shortlisted companies made their presentations, Iloanusi said the process was transparent from the beginning and it would continue throughout.
He said, “We advertised sometime in August last year. The process is still continuing. What we have done so far is we have shortlisted or prequalified companies that met our original prequalification criteria.
“Now the next stage is we have written them, asked them to submit their detailed proposals tailored to our solutions and that closed on the 30th of last month.
“What they are doing now is they are coming one by one to present their detailed solutions to us and defend them. After this we will now do an evaluation based on our scope of service and their defence.
“After that we will submit the best companies that meet our requirements. They will then be taken through to the next stage which is invitation to submit commercials.”
