American multinational corporation, General Electric (GE), may is set to begin operation on the Nigeria’s narrow gauge rail network next week, the Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Fidet Okhiria, has said.
GE, in the interim phase of the concessioning agreement, is expected to run the rail’s major network, from Lagos to Kano, with 200 wagons and 10 locomotives.
The interim phase, which is for 12 months, is expected to enable both parties – GE and NRC – to address grey areas in the concessioning documents before the actual take-off of the main or tenured agreement.
Okhiria told reporters in his office that while the interim framework was signed between government and GE in May, the finer details, which involve the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with individual firms that made up the GE consortia, had not been signed.
He said: “What we have signed is the interim framework. We are yet to sign the individual agreements with each of these firms that make up the GE consortia.”