KANO-MARADI LINE CONTRACT AWARDED WITHOUT DUE PROCESS?
RAILWAYMAN SHARES A REPORT BY ASST BUSINESS EDITOR OF THE GUARDIAN, GEOFF IYATSE • Contracts awarded before preliminary designs • Kano-Maradi project signed despite AfDB funding advisory Contract cost highest ever in Africa* Kano-Maradi @ $6.9m per km, Dakar-N'djamena-Djibouti Trans African Railway @$2.7m per km, Djibouti-Libreville@ $2.2m per km, Cotonou-Niamey-Ouagadougou-Abidjan @ $1.7m per km An investigation has shown that the average cost per kilometer (km) of the newly contracted Kano-Maradi rail line exceeds similar projects under the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), as estimated by the African Union (AU) by, at least, 100 per cent. The Federal Government, recently, announced that it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Mota-Engil Group for the construction of the 283.75 Kano-Maradi standard-gauge rail at a contract cost of $1.959 billion. A press release by the Federal Ministry of Transportation said the line would ...