According to him, of the said amount, $249 million has been spent from the $500 million Chinese EXIM Bank loan which the federal took while $162 million has been spent by the federal government.
The director who disclosed this when the chairman of the Presidential Committee on Subsidy Re-investment Project (SURE-P) General (Rtd) Marthin Luther Agwai led other committee members on a tour of the project, said work on the project which has attained 52.7 per cent commenced in 2009 but was stalled due to paucity of fund.
“What we have here is what we call Lot 1A and 3 of the Abuja mass transit system. The system has six lots covering a total length of about 300 kilometers. What we are doing now is 45.245kilometer. The Lot 3 takes off from the Central Business District around where you have the NNPC Mega station, that’s the Metro Station and runs all the way through Idu here to airport.
“Then Lot 1A takes off from here to Kubwa, it terminates at Bazango station and we have 12 stations. It would have a speed of 100 kilometers per hour. We have a loan of 500million US dollar from the China Exim Bank and the balance is being paid by federal government of Nigeria. When it started, for almost three years there was no funding but now funding has been assured under this arrangement that we have. For the EXIM Bank loan we have spent about $249 million and for Nigeria we have spent $162 million. It will be completed by December 2015” he explained.
Also speaking during the tour, Agwai disclosed that the federal government has earmarked N10 billion for the project out of the N268.37 billon 2014 SURE-P budget which would be released to the contractor handling the project, and assured that because of this and other efforts, the December 2015 completion date of Athe project would be met.
The committee chairman expressed hope that the project when completed would make mass transit system in Abuja a success.
Author: Chief Editor
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