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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The Managing Director, Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), Fidet Okhiria, has disclosed that the Federal Government lost more than N113 million over the non-operation of the Abuja-Kaduna trains for over eight months.
Okhiria said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja, on Saturday.
He also said Nigerians also incurred some losses indirectly due to the stoppage of operations on the route.
”The last time we checked that was between the months of March to August. We have lost about N113 million.
“Using what we were earning between Jan and March, so we had to use it as a working document.
“Although, when the train was working, there are a lot of other businesses that were going on.
“There were people selling on the train, there were people selling around the stations, and there were people that had opened shops and people were patronising them because the trains were running.
“So those were indirect benefit and cost that have been lost.
“More so, somebody who would have travelled from Kaduna to Abuja via train for some form of transaction and couldn’t make it because the trains were not running would have also lost something.
“The economic benefits is also lost, so we should not only look at the naira and kobo that railway would have been able to make from it, but include all other losses by Nigerians,” he said.
