The contractors handling the connection of the rail line to the Lagos Port Complex Apapa have stated that they are still installing the rail tracks to the port.
This is coming two weeks after President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the operations of the Lagos-Ibadan rail line.
According to SHIPS & PORTS, a contractor, who spoke on condition of anonymity in Apapa on Tuesday stated that against expectations, operation of the new standard rail gauge had not begun at the port.
“The delay still lingers because the laying of the tracks is not yet completed,” the contractor said.
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The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi had stated during the commissioning of the project, that it was now possible for containers to be moved by rail from the Apapa port to the Inland Container Depot (ICD) in Ibadan, Oyo State, from where they would be picked up by trucks to their final destination.
The Minister’s statement is yet to see the light of day two weeks after the inauguration of the railway service, which gulped a whopping $6.7 billion.
The Lagos District Manager of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), Jerry Oche, however, claimed that operation on the new rail line has started, although on a low scale.
“The issue is not that there is no activity at all. It is just that we have not kicked the ground running,” he said.
Oche said a train is currently loading containers at the port, “which it would pull out soon”.
