The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Eastern Narrow Gauge.
The cost of the project was put at $3.02bn.
The decision was taken at the weekly meeting of the council presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Amaechi also told reporters that the council approved the construction of a deep seaport at Bonny and a railway industrial park in Port Harcourt at a cost of $703.1m.
He however said the two projects would be at no cost to the Federal Government, saying they would be funded through Public-Private Partnership arrangement.
He said the industrial park would gulp $241.2m while the Bonny Deep Seaport would gulp $461.9m.
The minister said, “The Federal Executive Council has approved the award of contracts for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri eastern narrow guage railway, with new branch lines and trans-shipment facilities.
“The council also approved the construction of a new deep seaport in Bonny, under PPP and the construction of a railway industrial park in Port Harcourt.
“The railway line will be at a cost of $3,020,279,549. The industrial park, which is under PPP, at no cost to Federal Government, will cost $241,154,389.31. The Bonny deep seaport will cost $461,924,369, at no cost to the Federal Government.
“The Port Harcourt to Maiduguri narrow gauge railway will have new branch lines: from Port Harcourt to Bonny and from Port Harcourt to Owerri are new lines.
“There is another connecting to narrow gauge to standard gauge at Kafanchan. There is a branch line from Gombe or before Maiduguri to Damaturu and Gashau.”
Still on PPP, the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, said the council approved the establishment of the Nigeria Correctional Service Shoe, Garment, and Leather Processing Factories in Aba, Abia State, as well as Janguza, Kano State.
“The benefit, beside the employment of Nigerians, is the opportunity for training of the inmates of our correctional facilities in Janguza, Kano State and Aba in Abia State.
“The contract for full business skills compliance certificate is given to Messrs LG Investment Limited, a Nigerian company which is partnering with a Chinese company, Full Technology Incorporated from Beijing, China,” he said.
Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo, said the council also approved the contract for the procurement and installation of automotive/mechatronics equipment in special centres in six geopolitical zones.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the council approved the award of the contract for the final design of engineering infrastructure and production of tendered documents for Kabusa District Phase III in Abuja in the sum N183, 709, 480, 50.
He said the council approved the rehabilitation of the various screening machines at airports at the cost of N654m.
He added that N788m was approved as augmentation for the completion of the rehabilitation of the Abeokuta-Ibadan Road.
The approval brought the cost of the project to N4.78bn.
