LAGOS- Railway workers have opposed the Federal Government’s plan to concession the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), preferring the creation of a Ministry of Railways.

Mr. Abiodun Lesi, President of the Senior Staff Association (SSACTAC), told newsmen in Lagos that government should rather continue with the Chinese rehabilitation project.

He noted that 250 million U.S. dollars (about N29.5 billion) had already been spent on the railway rehabilitation project.

He recalled that former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, in its bid to revamp railway transportation,entered into a contract worth 8.3 billion U.S. dollars (about N971 billion) with a Chinese company.

President Umaru Yar’Adua had on October 1 announced that the Federal Government was set to privatise the Western and the Eastern Districts of the NRC.

Lesi, who said that the timing of the plan was wrong, advised the government to drop the idea of privatising the corporation and complete the Chinese project initiated by Obasanjo.

“The 8.3 billion-dollar Chinese project will go a long way to put things in the right direction because it involves the creation of a double track, including structures and workshops, and supply of locomotives,” he said.

Besides, Lesi noted that the contract was one of the cheapest in the world.

“The government has to invest in the rail system and put all the phases in the right places and it can do this by taking money from our foreign reserves to revamp the system,” he said.

“If the corporation is given out on concession now, an average Nigerian will find it difficult to pay the fare because railway transport is a social service, according to the Act establishing it,” he said.

Also speaking, pensioners of the corporation said that they were not in favour of the plan, making reference to the Ajaokuta Steel Company experience.

The National Administrative Secretary, Mr. Cornelius Onyeji, said that privatising the company would worsen the plight of the pensioners since the concessionaires might not be willing to pay their pension.

He said that rather than privatising the corporation, the Federal Government should create a Ministry of Railways to make it yield positive results.

Onyeji said that the government had always rejected the idea of setting up a railways ministry since the idea was mooted in 1984.

“As it is, we are already a liability to the Federal Government and no right-thinking investor will want to acquire such a liability,” he added.