House Demands Cost Of Stolen Rail Tracks From NRC

The House of Representatives has directed the Nigeria Railways Corporation, NRC, to evaluate and furnish its committee on Land Transport, the total cost of stolen rail tracks and other equipment of NRC and the ones recovered.

The committee also queried the Corporation for poor communication gap during the relocation of coaches from Borno State to Plateau State that gave impression that the Coaches were stolen.

During an investigative hearing, the Chairperson committee on Land Transport, Blessing Onuh, who expressed concern over the destruction of NRC critical infrastructure tasked the NRC to step up efforts in carrying out their mandate.

She expressed concern over the destruction of NRC critical infrastructure adding that Nigerians were worried about the state of assets of the NRC, especially as regards the safety of the tracks amidst incidences of vandalisation of track sleepers which were intercepted in many parts of the country.

The Managing Director, Nigeria Railways Corporation, Dr. Freeborn Okhiria, told the Committee that the movement of Coaches from Maiduguri was official and necessary stakeholders were informed about the movement.

Dr. Okhiria said the relocation of the Coaches from Maiduguri to the Corporation’s workshop in Jos was to fix and service it for effective service delivery.

The Commissioner of Police, Railway command, CP Fred Okpetutu said the movement of Coaches from one location to another is an internal arrangement of the NRC that does not require an approval of the IGP except for exceptional cases.

The investigative hearing was to unravel the causes of stolen rail tracks, tickets reckeetering and other ugly incidents and how to address it.

Recently, there were reported stories on online and some conventional Media that rail coaches were alleged to be stolen in Maiduguri, though it has since been debunked by NRC.

Oduyemi Odumade, Edited By Grace Namiji