Business
NRC To Begin Train Services, Soon
Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) Adeseyi Sijuwade has said that full operational mass transit train services would return in phases in Kano, Maiduguri, Jos, Enugu, Port Harcourt and Lagos before the end of this year.
He said the selection of concessionaires for private sector involvement has already started to ensure that the set target is realistic.
He noted that the ongoing rail rehabilitation projects include Lagos, Jebba to Kano, while the corporation has carried out the rehabilitation and completion of Warri-Ajaokuta standard rail line, Construction of Abuja – Kaduna, Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge line, refurbishment of 100 wagons and 70 coaches for sustainability of freight and commuter train services, upgrading of signal and telecommunication facilities and re-equipping of workshops.
He thanked the federal government for its commitment to effective train services to Nigerians by giving approval in its 2009 budget for the procurement of 25 new locomotive engines out of which five have been received by the corporation in February, 2010.
Sijuwade said reconstruction work along with landscaping was on-going on the headquarter buildings of the corporation at Ebute-Metta while operational staff would be given uniform as part of efforts to give the corporation a new and acceptable corporate image, adding that the mechanical/electrical engineering workers from all the districts of the corporation are presently undergoing a two-week training course in Lagos while the locomotive engine drivers have gone to South Africa for training.
“As you are all aware transport and indeed the rail transport is a component part of the present administration’s 7 point agenda and a critical element in the nation’s socio-economic development in its drive for Vision 20-2020. This is to say that the NRC has a high public profile window and we as Railway workers be it the managing director, director, loco driver, ticket checkers or spy police have a duty to remain customer-focused and sensitive to good service delivery. This is one way we can truly speak of Railway rebirth we can sustain.” While promising to improve on the welfare of the workers of the corporation by first of all looking into matters of allocation of staff quarters, Sijuwade enjoined all the workers of the corporation to conform to the spirit of servi-com, which he said was ‘Government’s campaign instrument for positive behavioural change in our places of work.
‘Servicom is about good service delivery in terms of service place, time or charges that will elicit customer’s satisfaction’. Sijuwade said, referring to the corporation as the shopping floor for government business.
“Nigerian public deserves to be served better and we must put ourselves in readiness to ensure they are served right”, he told the workers.