Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has revealed that the Federal Government has been able to pay up to $150m out of the $2bn loan it borrowed from China to construct rails.

Amaechi was a guest on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ programme where he made the submission.

He said: “The right ministry to respond to that question is the Ministry of Finance; they borrow and they repay but I think the last I heard about it, it was between a $100m to $150m repayment that we have done so far in the Kaduna-Abuja. Don’t forget that we’ve not borrowed any money yet, the only money we borrowed is in Kaduna-Abuja and Lagos-Ibadan.

“Lagos-Ibadan, what we borrowed is about $1.5bn though it is not matured for repayment, what has matured for repayment is the Kaduna-Abuja which is being repaid.

“Nigerians think we borrow so much but the only projects we have borrowed so far is the Kaduna-Abuja where we borrowed $500m and Lagos-Ibadan where we borrowed $1.5bn. So, that brings the total loan exposure for us in the Ministry of Transport to about $2bn as far as the railway is concerned.”

You could recall Amaechi recently made the disclosure that the extension of the Abuja-Kaduna rail line to Kano wll begin this June.

“We are grateful that the Chinese government through the China Exim bank was able to give us the loan at a concessionary rate to construct from the seaport down to Ibadan. We hope that we get money to be able to construct from Ibadan to Kano so that we can complete the track and make sure that business takes place” he said.