Former President Olusegun
Obasanjo awarded the Abuja Rail Project in 2007 without engineering design according
to Project Manager of a Chinese civil engineering and construction company,
Etim Abak.
The Minister of FCT and
current governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, allegedly signed the
$841.645,898m contract based on an uncalculated estimate.
The committee was also told
that the contract, which was for 60.67-kilometre rail project, was inflated by
$10m per km and that the length was later reduced to 45km without refund of the
cost for the 15.67 km that was dropped off from the project.
The Senate committee, led
by Dino Melaye were at the site of the project to carry out oversight
functions, therefore, demanded the refund of $195,878,296.74 being the amount
for the 15.67km that was cut out, from the Chinese firm handling the project.
Abak told senators that the
contract was signed by the then FCT minister without design and MoU, and that
it was carried out based on conceptual design.
Abak said,
“The
contract was awarded based on conceptual design and estimates were not properly
done. There was no formal design submitted and rail bridges and crossover
bridges were not captured in the contract.”
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