The Federal Government has said it would establish rail facilities in Kajola, Ogun State, as part of measures to ensure sustainable growth in the rail sector.
Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who made the disclosure Friday during an inspection visit to the ongoing Lagos – Ibadan rail project, said the factory would handle the manufacturing of some of the materials for the construction work and is scheduled to take off in October.
Amaechi, who undertook the working visit barely forty eight hours after inauguration of the new cabinet by President Muhammadu Buhari, also disclosed that the ground breaking for the University of Transportation in Daura, Katsina State would happen in September.
“We are insisting that they cannot continue to manufacture coaches, Locomotives and wagon in China and selling to us. So, as part of the benefits we will get out of the contract we have given them is that they will build a factory in Kajola.
“For now they will begin to manufacture wagons but they will progress from wagon to coaches and locomotives and Nigerians will understudy them”, Amaechi said.
Recall that during the last inspection tour of the project on the 10th of May, which was few weeks to the end of the former dispensation, the Minster announced that the track laying on Lagos Ibadan rail line would be completed by the end of May ahead of its scheduled three years completion date.
The 157km Lagos-Ibadan rail project was awarded in 2017 to the Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Company, CCECC to the tune of $1.6billion with a three years completion agreement.
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