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More sugarcoated answers
have been given by Governor
Theodore Orji of Abia State
than questions are asked on
the possibility of achieving
the monorail project which
his administration said it
was going to build in Abia
State. Widely reported last
month, Orji had boasted that
his administration has
signed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) with a
Canadian company, Globim
Corporation, for the
construction of a monorail
transportation system in the
state.
According to information
available on its policy
online, Globim Corporation
is a privately owned
consortium of
internationally-recognized
and multi-disciplinary
engineering organizations,
experts and specialists in
various fields of
transportation and
infrastructure. Internally,
Globim has adequate
personnel capabilities to
implement any engineering
project from start to
finish. This includes design
and construction, management
of contractors and
subcontractors,
manufacturing and requisite
supply needed to complete
the project.
But in the outbreak that a
monorail was going to be
built in Abia State, I
contacted my
friend-colleagues in Canada
and the USA in the
journalism profession to
help me investigate whether
the Globim has a track
record in the construction
of Monorail, and the results
of their investigation is
rather more shocking than it
could be believed. Their
investigation reveals that
Orji perhaps was out to reap
money fraudulently from Abia
State's coffers.
One of their reports reads:
"This is clearly a scam to
get money out of Nigeria to
Canada. Ask yourself why
aren't they using the world
leader in rail systems at,
http://www.bombardier.com/en/
transportation/products-services/rail-vehicles/automated-monorails
or going to China or Japan
for this? The Globim people
have no track record of
building anything (clue to
this being suspect is that a
possible Nigerian is running
the company). Clearly as
Governor you start as many
projects as you can – scam
off the development money
(sometimes as much as 20% of
the total – so in this case
50 million USD ) multiply by
all the other projects that
don't get made, is it a good
way to make money?
"According to Globim's
website, the first phase of
the Onitsha Monorail is
budgeted at US $503 million
and will have the equivalent
of 36.2 kilometers of single
track. No word so far on who
the supplier for the actual
trains and infrastructure
will be, or where it might
be manufactured or what the
local content might be."
On the exterior, Governor
Orji had promised that Abia
State would provide the
labour and security required
for the success of the
monorail project; in just
the same way many projects
awarded in Abia State
require both questions and
answers. For example, the
Achara Ihechiowa-Amagwu road
awarded to Worldwide
Environmental Technologies
LTD at the sum of over N380m
was one of the many roads
that were awarded, but later
abandoned. And here is Orji
promising to build a
monorail system in Abia
State.###
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