By Favour Nnabugwu

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has directed the contractor handling the Lagos-Ibadan rail project to increase the speed of work, as he expressed displeasure with the current level of work.

Although, Amaechi, during the monthly inspection of the project last week attributed the slow pace of work to the heavy downpour in recent times, he said he was still not pleased with the pace at which the contractor worked. “No, No, No.  I am not satisfied. But they have a reason for my not being satisfied. The problem is the rains. The work is progressing. You will agree with us that we are progressing. The problem is the rains.  There is no way they would have gone extra with the rains.

“At the meeting, they agreed that now that the rainy season is coming to an end, there will be improvement. Their fear, however, is that in the next one or two weeks, the rains may come but immediately after that, the work will pick up faster, the Minister stated.

He added: “One and a half years is the original period for the construction of the stations but we have insisted that they will finish it before December.”

On the tracks laid already,  Amaechi said:  “They have been able to lay 12 kilometres as against the 1.3 kilometres laid last time. We are still not impressed with the level of work. Their argument is that the track laying is not the problem as they can lay as many tracks as possible any day but that the problem is earth work.”

He continued: “They said if the rains stop,  they can conclude the earth work which is at 90 per cent.  The remaining 10 per cent is between Iju and Abeokuta.”