IBADAN
The authorities of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) have said that whereas the corporation barely earns up to N1.7million per day, it uses about 24,000 litres of diesel daily for the Lagos-Ibadan route, amounting to about N4 million.
NRC said that it spends 135.3 per cent higher than what it earns from the sale of tickets to passengers daily on fuelling the trains that operate on the Lagos-Ibadan route.
The managing director, Mr Fidet Okihria, was quoted as saying, “The Abuja-Kaduna train bombing on March 28 has seriously affected us. The Abuja-Kaduna service was doing marvelously well. At a time, we were hitting N450m monthly and by the time you remove all operational costs you’ll still have something to pay to the government.
“But now, we can hardly buy diesel to operate. In fact, the major headache now is the price of diesel. For instance, on average, we use about 24,000 litres daily for the Lagos-Ibadan service and we barely earn up to N1.7m per day.
“Now the supply cost for a litre of diesel is close to N1,000. At the filling stations, you get it for about N700 to N800, but if you have a supplier, he will have to put his profit margin, VAT and others, and this brings the cost to about N1,000 per litre.
“So, we are talking about spending almost N4m on diesel alone, when we barely make N1.7m. But we still have to provide the services on that route.”
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