The federal government has given a new delivery date for the completion of the 323km Itapke -Warri rail project to August 2018.
The initial completion period of the project contract that traverses Kogi, Edo and Delta States was 15 months (to end March 2019) but the proposed August date may likely not happen as the contractor, CCECC, is seriously faced with challenges which includes insecurity, harsh weather conditions, community crisis, delayed release of funds, right of way issues and in some cases, lack of station designs.
The contract for the rehabilitation of a section of the dilapidated rail track, construction of access roads plus drainages, and building of the rail stations was awarded to China Civil and Engineering Construction Company (CCECC) Nigeria limited at US $122.6m but the contract sum may likely change with additional scopes of the job that were not originally part of the contract
The rail line has 12 stations and the contract is divided into two segments – Itapke to Ajaokuta and Ajaokuta to Warri. The Itapke to Ajaokuta (IA) has two stations while the Ajaokuta to Warri (AW) has 10 stations. The stations include: Station IA1 – Eganyi, Station IA2 – Adogo, Station AW1 – Ajaokuta, Station AW2 – Itogbo, Station AW3 – Agenegbode, Station AW4 – Uromi, Station AW5 – Ekehen, Station AW6 – Igbanke, Station AW7 – Agbor, Station AW8 – Abraka, Station AW9 – Okpara, and station AW10 – Ujewu.
Scope of work in the two segments
The first segment comprised the rehabilitation of railway line which is about 52km completed except the two stations. The second segment comprised the rehabilitation of some segments of the tracks that are damaged (not included in the initial contract), the building of the 10 stations, access roads, clearing the thick vegetation that had buried the tracks and other works.
The work has reached advanced stage and the contractor is working to meet the completion deadline, although it is a bit difficult to estimate in percentage the general scope of work done as work is progressing on majority of the stations.
The Itakpe-Ajaokuta line laying of tracks at station IA 02 is completed while the profiling of ballast is in progress.CCECC alone has employed about 700 locals on the Itapke-Warri rail corridor (technical and non technical). Some communities have had their roads paved and one lands leveled.
Also read: Nigeria signs a US $6.7bn contract agreement for the Ibadan-Kaduna rail
Challenges
The contractor is facing security problems especially around the Ajaokuta end as kidnappings among other crimes happen regularly around that axis. Because of insecurity, CCECC had to sub-contract stations 9 (Okpara) and 10 (Ujewu) to a local contractor – Tinabell Nigeria Ltd to handle. The contractors also complained that communities around Abraka and Warri sometimes would stop them from working, citing compensation issues. At AW8 (Abraka) for instance, the communities even stopped CCECC from working for days.
Unpredictable weather is also slowing down the pace of work done. There has been recurrent daily rainfall since April. This has further slowed down the pace of work significantly.
The length of the project (323km) is another issue the contractor is grappling with deploying equipment, tools and manpower has been an issue. Also the sites are remotely located thus making it difficult for staff to work during odd hours.
