ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – The Minister of Transportation, Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, has said the Federal Government is creating 200,000 jobs monthly through investment in rail infrastructure.
Speaking in Abuja at a news briefing with online newsmen, the minister said the local workforce constitutes 90 per cent of the labour force. He said there are many Nigerian engineers involved in the rail projects.
He also informed that the ministry has started constructing fence around the new railway projects to prevent herders from encroaching. He said the herdsmen have started over stepping their boundaries and getting close to the railways.
The minister said the Abuja/Kaduna railway which is already operational is running on a speed of 90 kilometers per instead of the initial design of 120 kilometers per hour because of the herders who graze their cattle around there.
He talked about the additional railway line from Daura in Katsina State to Maradi, which is a border town in Niger Republic. He said the project is important as it would boost economic activities between Nigeria and Niger Republic.
Amaechi said the Lagos/Kano railway is in the pipeline, adding that it has provision for people to get off in Abuja.
The minister said besides the various railway projects being handled by the ministry of Transportation, a lot has equally been done in aviation and maritime.
In the aviation sector, he said the Abuja Airport Runway project executed in 2016 was the star project while in the maritime sector, sanity has been restored. He added that maritime used to be a seaport of corruption where people preferred to be appointed Director-General instead of being a minister. He said no President had punished anyone until the current administration came into office.
The minister said the dwindling oil price has affected the projects the government had planned to carry out.
Amaechi said the government planned to complete the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway reconstruction project by December this year.