The Ministry of Transportation, through its different ongoing projects at different geographic locations across the country, is seeking to create hundreds of thousands of jobs for unemployed Nigerians, with its ongoing projects.

The Minister, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, disclosed this on Friday while fielding questions from selected online journalists in Abuja. He explained that the current administration with these projects is doing everything possible to create jobs.

He maintained that “once we get our rail system operating and moving lots of our freight traffic, Nigeria will experience economic boost.”

News Express Correspondent Mayowa Okekale, who was among the panel that interviewed the Minister, reports that the Ministry’s projects, since inception, has been creating a large volume of jobs, businesses for the unemployed ones in the country and would not relent its effort in continuing.

According to Amaechi, “You can imagine the number of people we have employed only on the Abuja-Kaduna rail line which is now functioning perfectly. Countless number of people were engaged. Also on the rehabilitation of Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri rail line project, a lot of people were employed.

“Even, many security men work on the railway track from morning till next morning; 24 hours. So let us also imagine the logistics and the businesses we have strategically created for people in this regard.”

He assured that Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri standard gauge rail lines, after its completion, would start commercial operation in June 2018.

He stated that the project was first awarded in 1987 and abandoned for over 30 years which would have been the first standard gauge in Africa.

When asked about the issue of principle of local content in employing people in Kaduna-Abuja railway line, the Minister said: “All the people in the villages were adequately covered as far as hiring was concerned.” He added: “We requested for people in the villages along the axis and hired them. We even made advertisement through the internet to make sure many were engaged.”

While shedding light on reasons why the cost of food is high in the country, Amaechi said: “the infrastructure that conveys the food products to the markets appear to be non-existent.”

Speaking on the recession quagmire, Amaechi assured that Nigeria would soon get, saying that “the current administration did not put the nation in recession but the situation was just too bad when we came in. It was fait accompli that we were going to go into recession but we are obviously coming out of it.”

Amaechi, speaking further, stated that Nigerians should now be happy because the current government is responsible to its citizenry and still pulling efforts to diversifying the economy more in a transparent manner.

Concluding, He opined: “Now, Nigerians can see the reality in the diversification process. The first thing about this is to, at least, feed ourselves and stop importing few of our food items like rice, fish, chicken, among others. Now, we also export yams and nobody is complaining that the standard is low.”

Update news