An official of the Chinese Civil Engineering and Construction Company (CCECC) on Monday disclosed to a Senate panel how Former President Olusegun Obasanjo awarded the $841 million Abuja rail project without engineering design and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2007.

According to reports, CCECC’s Project Manager, Etim Abak made the revelation to the Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT) during an inspection to the project site. Etim said the then Minister of FCT, Nasir el-Rufai signed the contract on behalf of the federal government.

The Senate Committee discovered that the contract which stood at 60.67 kilometres, was inflated by $10 million (about N2 billion at N200 per dollar) per kilometre even as the length was later reduced to 45 kilometres without the refund of the cost for the 15.67 kilometres dropped.

The Project Manager of the company, Etim Abak, while answering questions from members of the committee, said the contract was signed by the then FCT minister without design and MOU, saying it was carried out based on what he simply identified as a conceptual design.

The contract was awarded based on a conceptual design and estimates were not properly done. There was no formal design submitted and rail bridges and crossover bridges were not captured in the contract.