China to supply Nigeria with 64 railway carriages and open an assembly plant in Ogun State

NIGERIA is to take delivery of 10 train coaches from China before the end of June as part of the ongoing railway consolidation programme that will involve the purchase of 64 carriages and the opening of a wagon assembly plant in Ogun State.

As part of a massive overhaul, Nigeria is upgrading its antiquated railway network left behind by the British colonial government, expanding it from narrow gauge to standard gauge. Already, the Abuja to Kaduna section of the network is up and running and the government is working to have the Lagos to Ibadan section functional too soon.

These 10 coaches, manufactured by the Chinese Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRSC) are expected to arrive in Nigeria by June. Transport minister Rotimi Amaechi, recently led a delegation to China to inspect the pace of work on the coaches where he pointed out that operations are behind schedule.

Mr Amaechi said: “We need the coaches by June latest. We need coaches that can carry men from one point to another and we need a minimum of 10 coaches now out of the 64.

"I requested for 10 coaches now because we need to improve on the Kaduna-Abuja line. If the 10 coaches don’t come, there is nothing I can do but they have to come because they have to manufacture for us to use in Kaduna-Abuja and again Lagos-Ibadan, which will soon be ready."

He added that the pace of work was slow and urged the manufacturers to improve on it, pointing out that the contract had expired. Mr Amaechi said that the issue was not with CRRSC but a contract between Nigeria and the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC).

 “The pace of construction is slow and they need to improve on it, in fact, the contract has expired. We may not have paid all the money but we paid quite a substantial sum and therefore, they should construct speedily.

“The contract was signed in December 2017 and was supposed to expire in February 2019. The time has expired and there is a breach of contract but we will look at what the law says because more than one third of the money has been paid,” Mr Amaechi added.

CRRSC general manager  Zhou Junnian, explained that the passenger coach components were 100% from China and materials for the works depended on the speed of the product and the customer’s requirements. He noted that in future, the CRRSC would work with the CCECC to meet the high standard and quality needed to finish the projects.

Mr Amaechi also visited the CRRSC Shandong facility to inspect the cargo wagons being built for Nigeria, where he disclosed that there was a verbal agreement with the CCECC to localise the railway industry in Nigeria. He added that under the deal, Nigeria is supposed to produce 15% of the coaches, locomotives and wagons.

 “We had a verbal agreement for them to produce 15% of the coaches, locomotives and wagons. They came back and said it was too expensive to establish locomotives and coaches factory and that we can start with the wagon and do 100% assembly in Nigeria for the first five years and that after the first five years, they will now build a factory that will manufacture wagons in Nigeria.

“It is not part of the contract we signed in 2017 but I insisted that for me to sign, they must localise it to create more jobs and reduce the expenditure of foreign exchange. Instead of going to buy dollars, you pay the Chinese in their local currency," he added.

Mr Amaechi pointed out that he has directed the Nigerian Railway Corporation to provide land for the wagon factory to CCECC before May 8. Following negotiations between the minister and the |Chinese, the railway assembly plant will not be in Ogun State.

“We have to go further to ask them if we can own it as we have not talked about ownership but what we said was localise it. Although they are using their profits to build it, you can make them hand over the ownership to Nigeria and as for the assembly plant, I intended for Zaria but they chose Kajola in Ogun state,” Mr Amaechi added.