Minister says Nigerians should ‘thank President Buhari’

Despite President Muhammadu Buhari’s prolong stay in London, the minister of transport,

Addressing journalists in Abuja, Amaechi said the Buhari administration has taken steps to correct some mistakes of the past government.

The minister noted that what bothers members of President Buhari's cabinet is his health adding that the country is in safe hands.

"What should bother us should be the President’s health. He has left everything in order. Once we know that he is alive and is recuperating, that calls for celebration,"Amaechi said.

“Nigerians should thank President Buhari for what he is doing. Check Transparency International’s countries corruption index, Nigeria used to be either number one or two but that has changed. The ministers no longer inconvenience road users with sirens because we’re low profile ministers.

“Apparently, we were going to go into recession. Now, we are walking out of this recession. A lot of indicators show that we are. The only problem we have is the cost of food production and this administration is working to address the issue” he added.

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Amaechi noted that the challenge faced by the ministry has been that of funding.

"Money has been the basic challenge of my ministry. The contracts that you need to deliver on a railway are in tonnes of naira. Take for example the approval by the president that we should do a railway from Abuja to Lokoja to join Itakpe to Warri as well as a sea pot in Warri; that project was put at $3.1 billion, which is nearly N1 trillion. Where will you get the money from?

“Like we are having a real operation investment in the narrow gauge in which GE is bringing about two million dollars to revive the old narrow gauge and run them by themselves.

“But when it comes to real construction, it is usually the government because they are in trillions. How many persons can raise that? The contract from Lagos to Kano is $8.3 billion, the contract from Lagos to Calabar is $11.1 billion dollars. At N300 per dollar, that is N3.3 trillion,” he added.

The minister disclosed plans by the ministry to increase the price for rail trips to cover for the cost of operations.

“Where will you run a rail transport for N1,000 and then the business coach is N1, 500? The passengers themselves are the people begging that we should increase the cost of transportation and we are hoping that by October, when we receive more coaches, we will increase the price. I don’t know how much we will increase it to. But we will increase the price so that even if we do not pay the entire cost of operation, we can at least reduce the loss.

“We expect about 10 to 17 more coaches by October. I think by the time the new coaches and locomotives arrive, we will be doing 130km/h. The current speed is 80km/h and the train has a capacity of 150km/h.

The minister noted that the present administration would fulfil its electoral promises to Nigerians.