Obasanjo awarded $841m Abuja rail project without engineering design, MoU- CCECC staff tells Senate panel

Forum 8 years ago

Obasanjo awarded $841m Abuja rail project without engineering design, MoU- CCECC staff tells Senate panel

An official of the Chinese Civil Engineering and
Construction Company (CCECC) yesterday told a
Senate panel that Former President Olusegun
Obasanjo awarded the $841m Abuja rail project
without engineering design and Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) in 2007.


According to The Guardian Newspaper , CCECC's
Project Manager, Etim Abak made the revelation
to the Senate Committee on Federal Capital
Territory (FCT) during an oversight to the project
site. Etim said the then Minister of FCT, Nasir el-
Rufai signed the contract on behalf of the
federal government.



The Senate Committee discovered the contract,
which stood at 60.67 kilometres, was inflated
by $10 million (about N2 billion at N200 per
dollar) per kilometre even as the length was
later reduced to 45 kilometres without the
refund of the cost for the 15.67 kilometres
dropped.

Dino Melaye has demanded the refund
of the of $195,878,296.74 ( about N392 billion at
N200 per dollar) being the amount for the 15.67
kilometres cut out from the Chinese Civil
Engineering Construction Company (CCECC),
handling the project.


The Project Manager of the company, Etim
Abak, while answering questions from members
of the committee, said the contract was signed
by the then FCT minister without design and
MOU, saying it was carried out based on what
he simply identified as a conceptual design.