The unions under the aegis of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, NRC has warned the management of the corporation to suspend any further sales of iron scraps in the railway industry and the outsourcing of recreational facilities built for the workers, or face industrial unrest.
Nigeria’s first high speed rails system which connects federal capital city Abuja and northern commercial capital Kaduna begin commercial operations as President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurates operation on July 27. The 186.5 km standard gauge track built by the China Railway Construction Corporation has double lines. The Abuja-Kaduna route has nine stations and the train can travel at up to 150km per hour.
In a joint statement by the unions, workers threatened to shut down the sector should the management make good its plan as advertised in the media to to entertain bidding from any quarter on the sales of iron scraps and outsourcing of the recreational facilities
The statement by Secretary General of NUR Segun Esan, and Secretary SSA, NRC Branch, Romanus Emezie, said: “We will not allow any further plundering of the assets of the Corporation in the name of iron scraps disposal and outsourcing of the workers’ recreational club, staff canteens, railway institutes and club 1919 which has not brought anything meaningful to the Corporation,” he said.
”The last administration did same, selling thousands of tons of ferrous and non-ferrous iron scraps and nobody knows where the proceeds ended up. We do not know the modalities for the scraps disposal and everything looks shrouded up and known only to a cabal in the system. He tried to outsource the recreational facilities and we saw this as irresponsible and stopped it. We will do it again,” he added.
