Senior Staff Association of Communications, Transport and Corporations, SSACTAC, has informed the federal government to desist from amending the Nigeria Railways Corporation Act of 1955 to avoid private sectors taking over the operations among others.
The President General of SSACTAC, Comrade Mohammed A. Yunusa said that privatizing the corporation will cause loss of jobs and insisted that the decision is not a solution to Nigeria’s woes.
“We are a public service union and anything happening there would affect our members. Government policies are affecting our sector. For example, in Nigeria Railways Corporation, government is increasingly making efforts to amend the 1955 Act establishing it to enable private sectors to come and invest in rail operations. The experience we had from the privatization of NEPA is that it will always lead to loss of jobs and even decline in productivity, and this is worrisome.”
He said, “If we look at the British Railways, for example, there was a time they privatized it, eventually the same government of Britain went back and collected it from private investors and is managing it by itself.”
“We can compare our experiences with their own to see what issues in the Nigeria Railway Corporation are. The Government should continue to render their assistance to it. Railways activity is a social service and is public-driven. So, the government must find a way to assist it to get back to operations.”
“The experience we had from the privatization of NEPA which always lead to loss of jobs and we hope the government would study how the British government did theirs and apply same” said Comrade Yanusa
