By Mayowa Tijani | 13 July 2020
Rotimi Amaechi, minister for transportation, says reopening rail services in Nigeria could mean an additional 2,000 novel coronavirus infections per day.
The minister added that Nigeria will return to subsidising train transportation if rail services reopen with social distancing in place to avoid the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Speaking with Osasu Igbinedion on The Osasu Show, Amaechi said it is economically unwise to resume rail services now.
The former Rivers state governor said the rail service, which was incurring losses in 2016, had broken even and was making as much as N30 million in profits before the novel coronavirus struck.
“We are not in a hurry to reopen the train services, I had a conversation with the chairman in charge of the technical committee on COVID-19, and I did say economically it is not wise,” he said.
“First, you have about 88 passengers per coach, and for you to run social distancing on any of those coaches, then you have to do about 40 passengers per coach, you would be making a total loss.
“Currently we make about 120 million per month, and we spend about N90 million per month — at full capacity, and we spend about N90 million per month.”
‘REOPENING MEANS WE’LL BE BACK TO POSTING LOSSES’
The minister explained that the country would return to posting losses if the train services are reopened now.
“If you run at 40 passengers per coach, you will not be making like 60 million and still be spending N90 million, and then we are back to making a loss,” Amaechi added.
“You would have to then be subsidising the operational activities. We don’t have that kind of money now.”
Speaking on the health impact, Amaechi said one person could infect 40 people in a coach, and more.
“In terms of health, when I hear people say there is this equipment you will bring to spray and screen everyone you bring in to make sure they don’t have COVID, I say what about asymptomatic patients?
“Just one person can infect the 40 persons in a coach. The doors are open, if he moves around, the chances are that he would infect others. Until I am clear about how we would not infect people.
“Before COVID, we were moving 4,300 passengers per day — even if you bring it down to 2300 passengers, that means you’d be infecting 2,000 persons per day — that won’t be easy.”
The minister said he is trying to convince President Muhammadu Buhari to virtually commission the newly-purchased diesel multiple units (DMUs), which are faster.
“Once he commissions it, we’d do a test run with it, and see how we would manage passengers vis-a-vis COVID. I would hold a meeting in the next one week to see how to commission that.”
Comments:
More curious statements from the HMT!
1. If planes can fly, why can’t trains run? Left to his devices, it means no trains until there is a cure?
2. The argument about losses sounds rather puerile. Are they not piling losses now paying staff for no work done and for depreciating equipment parked in the sidings?
3. Essential workers/travellers also need to be moved and it is only by the limited lifting of restrictions that the economy can slowly be restarted. Elsewhere trains are running. All you need are appropriate protocols.
4. Hopefully the NRC director of operations was involved in the consultations with the Covid-19 task force. Otherwise you must just wonder at the technical and intellectual content of the exchanges.
5. It is not possible that they were making a profit before the onset of the pandemic. Perhaps he thinks diesel and some overheads are his only operational costs. What about the fixed costs, depreciation, the bureaucracy etc? Has he amortized his chinese loans? The man probably needs a rudimentary lesson in accounting.
6. All just goes to show that govt does not understand what it means to run a business.
7. Finally the president doesn’t need to commission dmus before you can test run them or put them into service. It is curious that he then says that he would see how they can manage passengers vis a vis covid-19 after commissioning the dmus. What exactly does he expect commissioning of coaches would change if he is really worried about infections?
As usual HMT’s stories just don’t add up.