The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) has said the federal government will earn up to N140 billion on e-ticket sales in 10 years of concession of ticketing on the Lagos-Ibadan and Itakpe-Warri rail services.
The acting director general of ICRC, Mr Michael Ohiani, disclosed this while presenting the full business case (FBC) certificates on both services to the minister of transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, in Abuja on Wednesday. The concession will be a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) with ICRC as the regulator.
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“The concession is for 10 years, and it is going to generate over N140bn to the federal government. And more importantly, it will create over N3,000 job opportunities, both direct and indirect,” Mr Ohiani said.
He said with the FBC, “The next step is to set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to deliver the project and the minister will also take it to FEC for approval and the ministry of justice will also clear it.”
Recall that the e-ticketing concession for the Abuja-Kaduna rail facility was awarded to Secure ID valued at N900m to last for 10 years.
Commenting, Mr Amaechi said the benefit of e-ticketing was that the government would earn more on the service.
He said, “On Abuja-Kaduna rail service, our revenues rose from over N100m to over N400m monthly. So, there is an improvement in even the number of coaches we put on the service. We have reduced wastage.”
On ticket racketeering, he said, “But I disagree with the public that there is still ticket racketeering on Abuja-Kaduna. I have spoken with the company in charge of the e-ticketing on Abuja-Kaduna, but I have also told them to take over the identification of passengers. Going forward, passengers’ names must match their ticket details.
“The National Assembly told me the NRC does not crosscheck the names on the tickets and the identity cards. So, I will direct the NRC to allow the company to do it. This is also about security. If we are able to identify all passengers, we can reduce security crises. All these will be sorted out when we go to cabinet for approval of security gadgets on the rail tracks.”
