Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, on Friday ordered stoppage of work at Omi-Adio Railway Station under construction on Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge rail line over compromise of standards by the contractor.
Amaechi gave the directive when he observed the non-usage of stone for flooring at the station during his monthly inspection tour of the project, NAN reports.
“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 these things and proceeded”, he said.
On progress in track laying, Amaechi said there is the need to speed up work on stations and deliver it by February, which is the government timeline.
He disclosed 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, who assured Nigerians that the entire project would be delivered by April 2020, inspected Ebute-Matta, Agege, Agbado, Kajola, Papalanto, Abeokuta, Olodo, Omi Adio and Moniya stations.
