Port Harcourt-Maiduguri narrow gauge project poorly done – Minister

The Minister of Transportation, Senator Said Ahmed Alkali, has condemned the poor quality of work in the ongoing Port Harcourt-Maiduguri reconstruction and rehabilitation of the eastern narrow gauge project.

Senator Alkali, who spoke to journalists shortly after inspecting the project in Port Harcourt, expressed disappointment on the poor quality of materials used in the project, saying the contractor were using manual alignment to lay the rail tracks.

He expressed anger that since the project, which is jointly sponsored by the federal government and the China Civil Engineering and Construction Company (CCECC) started, the contractor was yet to contribute its quota of the counterpart funding while the federal government has committed about 15 per cent of the contract sum.

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“I am disappointed in what I have seen because this contract was signed for 36 months and it is to cover over 2000km. So far, the Port Harcourt to Aba is around 47 per cent. Ideally, it is supposed to cover 47per cent of the entire 2000km, which by now we should be around Plateau or so, yet we are still struggling to be in Abia before the end of the year,” he said.