The Senate at its plenary session of Tuesday 16th May, 2017 mandated its Committee on Transport to invite the Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi over the omission of the Eastern Corridor Rail Line from the Federal Government’s (FG) proposed loan from China Exim Bank.
Presenting the motion, Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe (Abia: PDP) expressed dismay over what he described as an “inexplicable” omission of the FG to include the Eastern Corridor Rail Line in the rail segment of the 2016-2018 External Borrowing Plan. Speaking on the importance of the Eastern Corridor Rail Line, Sen. Abaribe, stated that it would link the South-East geo-political zone to the North-East and bring meaningful development. He was also critical of the Federal Government ‘s decision in omitting the Eastern rail line without making any reference to the Ministry of Transport master’s plan that emphasized its importance. In his view, every section of the country should have been taken into consideration; in the proposed loan as it would be paid by all sections of the country.
It would be recalled that the President had written to the National Assembly seeking approval for a loan of $692billion for the Rehabilitation of the North East and the Construction of Railways across the Country in an external borrowing plan. The plan had contained details to borrow $5,851billion from China Exim Bank to revamp the Lagos-Kano, Kano-Kaduna, Lagos-Ibadan and Lagos-Calabar rail segment. However, no time frame was given to the Committee on Transport to report its findings from the invitation.
