Daily Independent Online.
*
Thursday, July 01, 2004.
Railways monthly wage bill hits
N250 million
By Dan Alo
Correspondent, Lagos.
Efforts by the Federal Government to
reposition the Nigerian Railways Corporation (NRC) to become viable may suffer
another setback as the organisation’s wage bill and expenditures is on
the increase.
The financial profile of the corporation
made available at the accounts department showed that a considerable amount of
its revenue goes into settling the salaries of its 14,000 workforce put at N250
million monthly.
The expenditure of the NRC for the month of
June include the clearing of 1,500km of sidings, tracks and resuscitation of
300 tank wagons in its fleet that were recently used for the oil-lifting
contract signed between it and Oando, Exxon Mobil, and Elf.
The corporation’s monthly internally
generated revenue averaged N25m with a considerable amount going to maintaining
its functional engines.
The Assistant Director, Public Relations of
NRC, Mr.David Ndakotsu said in interview that “there is a big disparity
between what we earn monthly and what we pay as salaries; we earn N25m to N30m
monthly. This is a far from our
monthly wage bill of N250m, We are supposed to be paying ourselves but the
Federal Government is aware of this hence it offered to be paying workers
salaries, so that we can use our little resources to service our
infrastructure.”
He added that NRC management is making
efforts at improving the revenue profile by signing a memorandum of understanding
with some state government and corporation for mass transit programme.
Ndakotsu advises the public to patronise
the railways for it is able to fulfill its financial obligation, noting that
NRC currently runs passenger transport services in at least 14 states of the
federation carrying over 50,000 passengers.
The NRC is the oldest corporation in
Nigeria established in 1898. The management of the organisation was taken over
by Nigerians in 1955.
The rail track system covered over 3,500 km running between Lagos
and Kano, Port Harcourt, Maiduguri, and Jos.
