The Federal Government has said the process of securing a loan for the Kaduna-Kano railway project has not been concluded.

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who inspected the construction work at the project site on Friday, said China had stopped releasing funds as it used to in the past.

The $1.2bn project is currently being funded by the government through budgetary allocations, according to Amaechi.

He said the target was to begin commercial services on the railway in May 2023.

He said, “I have never denied that we are having financial challenges and that is because of economic downturn. The Chinese are not funding the way they used to fund us.

“Up till now, we are yet to conclude the loan for this project. So, we are funding this project from the budget. That is why I was skeptical about the conclusion (of the project) and said if funding is available.

“However, we are putting pressure on all the necessary institutions that need to give us money. But currently, we fund it through the budget. We will approach the Ministry of Finance again to fund us within this period, hoping that by May it is going to be the loan.”

The minister said the Federal Government was negotiating with Standard Chartered Bank for a loan to fund rail projects in Nigeria.

On whether the highlighted challenge would affect the target completion date of the Kaduna-Kano rail line, Amaechi expressed optimism that the work would be completed.

He said, “Based on the way they (contractors) are going, if we fund them, they will complete the work. But they must carry out the conversation we had with them in their office.

“The conversation is that they must break this thing into different grounds so that everybody is working at the same time and leaving at the same time. If they do that, then I’m sure that before May 2023, we will have commercial activities on the track.”