By; AMOS TAUNA, Kaduna
Engr. Fidet Okhiria, the Managing Director of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) has said thar the monthly revenue realised from train service operations on Abuja-Kaduna rail line has dropped from N500 million to N1 million monthly.
Speaking at an inspection of the Idu train station on Wednesday in Abuja, Okhiria said the essence of the tour is to correct some issues highlighted by the Minister of Transportation, Saidu Alkali that include escalators, elevators and allowances of security men.
It would be recalled that bandits detonated a bomb on the rail track of Abuja-Kaduna train and successfully immobilised the train between Katari and Rijana last year and kidnapped several passengers who were later released after an unspecified amount of ransom was paid.
Before the attack, he explained that NRC was earning N500 million a month and after the attack, the NRC was earning barely one million and must operate and provide service to the people, saying that the corporation is glad with the minister’s surprise visit to highlight some of the operational issues.
He explained, “Currently, we do two return trips against the 10 we were doing before that incident and we were running from 6 am to 10 pm but now we have been advised not to exceed to 6 pm. So, we are hopeful that when the security situation normalises and they are able to advise us, we can start the full operation so that we can break even.”
The Managing Director said that they have paid two months out of the 5 months outstanding and hope to conclude it soon, stressing that before now, they don’t delay but pay before the end of every month when everything is going on well.
