Nigeria awards $1.79bn railway contract to CCECC

CCECC, a Chinese state-owned firm has been awarded a $1.79 billion contract by the Nigerian government for work on the second phase of Abuja’s mass transit railway, the capital city’s minister said on Wednesday.

The three-year management contract is the latest in a series of infrastructure projects won by China Civil Engineering Construction Corp (CCECC) in Africa’s most populous nation.

Muhammad Bello, minister of the federal capital territory, also said that the contract would be funded by the Export-Import Bank of China.

The minister did not say when work would begin.

The Chinese engineering company had also worked on the first phase of the project.

Only last year, the Federal Government and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the execution of the 11.12 billion-dollar Lagos-Calabar railway project.

The Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, signed the agreement on behalf of the government, while the President of CCECC, Cao Baogang, signed for the company in Abuja on Friday.

He said that the contract was awarded during President Goodluck Jonathan’s regime in the sum of 11.92 billion dollars but was negotiated downward.

Amaechi said, “we were able to save 800 million dollars from the initial sum of the project which will be delivered in the next two years.

“This contract was awarded by the President Goodluck Jonathan regime at 11.917 billion dollars and when we took over at Ministry of Transportation we negotiated with CCECC and succeeded in reducing the contract sum from 11.917 billion dollars to 11.117 billion dollars.

“We are able to save 800 million dollars after negotiation with CCECC and that has to do with the fact that CCECC said prices of commodities like steel and other things have come down.