Amechi orders contractor to stop work on Lagos-Ibadan railway

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, enraged by the quality of work done on the Omi-Adio Railway station under construction on Lagos-Ibadan standard guage rail line ordered the contrator to halt work.
Amaechi Gave the directive when he got to the station during his monthly routine inspection tour of the ongoing project which he commenced from Lagos in company of others.
According to him, the observation of non-usage of stone for flooring at the station is one of the benefits of continuous inspection the project.
He said: “One of the benefits of this inspection is what is happening here now. Now, the contractor has been seeing to be doing very poor quality job in this station.
“We say stop and they have to start afresh.
“The implication is that if we didn’t stop here like we didn’t at Olodo (rail station), we won’t know what they are doing. If we didn’t stop here, they would have properly laid this things and proceeded.”
The minister said that he had directed the consultant to ensure that there would be a consulting staff, who is an engineer, in every station to ensure quality.
He said that the consultant must be on ground in each of the station always and not on visiting basis.
On progress in track laying, Amaechi said that the contractor had met the Federal Government’s target, but must work harder on construction of stations for speedy delivery.
According to him, there is the need to speed up work on stations and deliver it by February which is the government timeline.
He said that the argument of contractor was to deliver by April 2020 but the government’s argument was that they needed more hands and equipment to complete on time.
Amaechi, who noted that the track laying had reached 156km, expressed worry about the pace of work at Agege axis and the extension to Apapa port.
“We need to speed up and be able to decongest Apapa. We cannot decongest Apapa if they don’t get there on time,” he said.
Amaechi said that the delay in completing the 10 minor and major railway stations along the rail line was becoming more embarrassing, especially in December.