‘Obasanjo awarded $841m Abuja rail project without engineering design’

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo
awarded the $841m Abuja rail project
without engineering design and
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in
2007, an official of Chinese Civil
Engineering and Construction Company
(CCECC) told a Senate panel yesterday.
CCECC Project Manager, Etim Abak told
the Senate Committee on Federal Capital
Territory (FCT) during an oversight to the
project site.
He said the then Minister of FCT, Mallam
Nasir el-Rufai signed the contract on
behalf of the federal government.
Abak said the contract was awarded
based on conceptual design while
estimates were not properly done.
“There was no formal design submitted
and rail bridges and crossover bridges
were not captured in the contract,” he
told the committee.