THE country was shocked to the marrow recently when it became public that the Ghanaian-European Railway Consortium (GERC) had agreed to construct a 340-kilometre standard gauge railway line in Ghana for $2.2 billion. This is against the background of the cost of the 156-kilometre Lagos-Ibadan railway line, handled by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) and put at $2 billion. The implication of this is that while a kilometre of railway line costs $6.5 million in Ghana, the same length costs $13.6 million in Nigeria. Why would the construction of a kilometre of railway line in Nigeria cost more than double what it costs in Ghana? This certainly is an indefensible rip-off of the country by a few people in connivance with a foreign interest.

Source: Nigerian Tribune June 14, 2019 02:48 UTC