ABUJA—SIX contractors, who allegedly played prominent roles in the over N1 trillion railway construction and rehabilitation contracts, are to refund over N2.5 billion to the federal coffers. This was disclosed, yesterday, at the continuation of hearing of the House of Representatives ad hoc committee probing the award and execution of contracts.

The refunds are for excess payments made to the contractors by Nigeria Railway Corporation, NRC.

The committee, chaired by Ehiozuwa Agbonayinma, Ikpoba Oha/Egor, PDP, has already met with some former chairmen of the Board of the NRC and some of the companies in the course of the investigative hearing, which commenced in October 2015. CCECC, executing Lagos to Jebba rail line, is to refund N640 million; Costain West Africa Ltd, executing Jebba to Kano rail line, N608 million and Geo Group Asano, signalling and communica-tions upgrade, N368 million; Eser West Africa, handling the Port Harcourt-Markurdi rail line, N339 million.

Similarly, CCEcc, handling the Markurdi-Kano rail line would refund N353 million, while Routing Nigeria Ltd would refund N221 million.

At press time, officials from the office of the Auditor-General of the Federation could, however, not confirm if any of the companies had made refunds. 0 4

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/04/n1trn-rail-contract-6-firms-refund-n2-5bn-fg/