Effective rail system to create investment, says Senate

The Senate Committee on Land Transport yesterday said effective rail system in the country would create investments and employment for millions of Nigerians.

In his keynote address at a one day public hearing on the Nigerian Railway Corporation Act Cap, N129, LFN 2004 (Repeal and Re-enactment) Bill, 2015, Senate President, Bukola Saraki said the rail system is one of the most important arterial systems of our economy and therefore a major determinant of the success or otherwise of our economic reform package.

Saraki added that the 8th National Assembly remains committed to providing the necessary legislative support to aid infrastructure development and lay down the architecture on which a new virile Nigerian economy could be built, stressing that not so much have been achieved in the past to move this critical vehicle of the economy from the colonial initiative it has been to a 21st century economy solution.

According to him, the bill would bring great benefit to a new rail system enabling investment and promoting competition. It would also have an innovation on the economy, adding that the implications are already significant and direct, from the change it would bring to agriculture, mining, oil and gas, labour, transportation, urban planning to the sheer number of jobs that the construction and investment potential in this area holds.