This revelation is made by Babatunde Gbadamosi in 2018 interview with Wazobia TV. Babatunde said Lagos State government issued out the Okokomiko-to-CMS rail project to CRCC, China Rail Construction Company at a cost of $1.5 billion (US). But a document by CRCC shows that the real cost of the project is $181 million (US). He concluded that the project cost is inflated with $132 billion (US).
See the Interview Clip
Here is the video script
Don’t let me lie to you. The stealing of public fund that is going on in Lagos by politicians and civil servants is very serious.
This is just one of the examples. There was a bill for railway project. The size of the project on paper is different from the size in reality. In reality, the railway is from Mile 2 to CMS. On paper it is from Okoko to CMS. And as you’re hearing me, no evidence that the rail construction is from Okoko (and this is 2018).
The whole length of the rail line is 27.5km. When they announced it to the public in 2009, they told us the money for the blue line is 1.5 billion US Dollar. Let us understand this very well, it is over 500 billion Naira. Yes, N5000 billion not in million but billion. That is the amount the project cost Lagos State.
Ok, they started building it since 2009 till now (2018), 10 years.
I later discovered that in Ethiopia, they also built railway but their own construction of the railway started 2 years after that of our own construction in Lagos. And theirs is 759Km. For avoidance of doubt and for us to understand ourselves. Ethiopia already has rail line for that corridor. But the journey from Djibouti port, you know Djibouti is not in Ethiopia. Djibouti is Ethiopia neighbour. Ethiopia doesn’t have port but Djibouti have, so they negotiate with government of Djibouti to allow them access to their port through their railway.
So, they have the railway there. For the railway, the journey is like Lagos to Kano and it takes like 3 days. So they came up with an initiative of upgrading. Ethiopia government talked with China and they agreed on the construction of new railway from Djibouti to Adisa Baba, 759 km. So, they build a new line, standard gauge, not refurbishment of the old line. It is new line, alongside the old one! Heavy rail that supports hauling of cargo containers and passengers from Djibouti port to Addisa baba. And this cost 4.5 billion Us dollar for 759km railway.
When we do the mathematics, it turns out to be 5.2 million dollar per kilometre. The one for Lagos, when we do the calculation, it is 54 million dollar per kilometre. That is more than times 10 of what Ethiopia paid for heavy rail we paid for light rail. Our own rail in Lagos can not be used to carry cargo containers. It is built for passenger alone.
This matter didn’t end there, I discovered that the company that built Ethiopia rail is the same that Lagos rail construction is contracted to. They started the Ethiopia rail line 2011 and finished it 2016. They have started using it right now as I am talking to you. They started using it from January 2018 for the public. But did the test running throughout 2017. The same company that built the one for Ethiopia is the one building the one in Lagos.
I began to wonder that: “what kind of thing is this?” Lagos is building 27.5 km and have not finished after 10 years while Ethiopia built 759 km within 5 years.
So, I checked, I did Google search. From the Google, I got one paper. The paper is quarter 1 report of CRCC, that is China Railway Construction Company to the Hong Kong stock Exchange where they are. On the page 9, last paragraph of the paper, is the report of all the overseas contracts that CRCC has handled. In the paragraph, they wrote “Lagos Light Railway Scheme for the Blue Line and Red Line” and that the contract value is 1 billion 256 million renminbi, that is China currency. So, I did the conversion to dollar. My sister I was shocked. For the two lines, the contract is 181 million US dollar.
Even for Ethiopia 5.2 million dollar per km, there is a news that corruption is what made it to rich that amount. There is a fight over this in Ethiopia. The difference in Lagos and that of Ethiopia is over 1.2 billion US dollar. Where is the money?
