Nigerian railway woos private sector partners

Nigerian railway woos private sector partners

The Lagos District Manager of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Mr John Dottie, has called for public-private-partnership to sustain the railway sector.

Dottie stated this at the Lagos offices of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

Investment in railways

In his words; “investment in railway is enormous and the government cannot do it alone. We must look for other ways of funding; hence, the need to involve the private sector.’’

Dottie noted that investment in the railway by the government had not been consistent in Nigeria unlike other countries which invest massively in the system.

According to him, the Egyptian government has since 1985 voted 1.5 billion dollars every year for the improvement of its rail system.

He said that because of the success story of its rail system, due to sustained investments, the Egyptian government was already constructing a line to link Asia to the Suez Canal.

Dottie said, however, that Nigeria was beginning to take more interest in improving the rail system as the government had been consistent in the last two years in funding the sector.

The NRC District Manager said before the government bought 25 locomotives for the NRC in February last year, it was already discussing with the Flourmills of Nigeria, whose products the NRC was moving from Lagos Ports to Kano and Maiduguri.

He announced that flourmills of Nigeria had showed its preparedness to finance the purchase of five new locomotive engines, which would be dedicated exclusively for their traffic.

Dottie called on the private sector to take advantage of the rail transport system, which would provide a competitive alternative to road transport in Nigeria, by partnering with the government to sustain the sector.

More collaboration

The manager said that the NRC is equally set to collaborate with the Kwara State government for the launch of a mass transit train service on the 17th of May.

“Before now, we had also entered into collaboration with the Rivers State government. So bringing in private partners or external partners has always been the window we are looking at because government alone can no longer carry the burden of providing for the NRC,“ Dottie stated.

NAN/Qasim