There have been continuous complaints by passengers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) over some unscrupulous officials who have devised other means of selling train tickets at under-the-counter rates. ADOLA TUKURU reports.
The fear of sudden abduction on the Abuja-Kaduna highway, coupled with other criminal activities on that road has left the hapless passengers with no option but to comply.
Military chiefs not an exception
In recent times, the fear of armed kidnappers along the route was the beginning of wisdom for travellers and with military chiefs not an exception.
And for their safety, many of these passengers do not care even if they have to stand all through the trip.
A source who preferred to be anonymous at the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) said, these officials sell more than 300 tickets to standing passengers per trip and there are four trips in a day.
More money made at weekend
The source said the days they make so much money are usually weekends and Mondays.
“Assuming that they sell the tickets at a flat rate of N1500 to the 300 standing passengers, it means they make nothing less than N450,000 for a single trip.
“ And this excludes the seating passengers who are over 300 too. With this, it means about N1,000,000 is supposed to be recorded for the sale of tickets daily.
Another source in one of the stations revealed that some of the top staff members of the Corporation benefit so much from the sale of standing tickets.
NRC officials involved
A passenger , Andrew Ojuku lamented to Blueprint that most officials at the NRC are involved. The chain of corruption as it concerns ticket racketeering is long.
He further said so much money is made but the money is not remitted into the NRC’s coffers, which most people believe is the reason why NRC has continued to maintain that they are running at a loss.
“I suspect that they have duplicated the rail tickets. You know we Nigerians don’t pay much attention to things.
“I feel if more attention is given to the sale of tickets, the perpetrators will be fished out and the unwarranted stress they make passengers go through will stop.”
Some of those involved caught
Another passenger, Mr John Adekunle said, “We learnt that when the minister paid an unscheduled visit to the station, some people involved in the act were caught and he directed that they should be sacked.
“ I think that the minister should pay another such visit soon to put things in shape and reduce the suffering of Nigerians.
“When the minister visits again, I hope some of the infrastructures in the coaches and the stations would be looked at and fixed because the amount of money generated from the sale of tickets alone, if properly channelled, would contribute immensely to the country’s GDP,” he said .
Need to cater for passengers
To reduce the pressure, the Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi had said the coaches used on the axis should be deployed to Abuja-Kaduna rail line to cater to the passenger surges on the route.
He also attributed the current surge to insecurity in some parts of the country.
The minister said: “We deployed coaches from Warri-Itakpe to feed Abuja-Kaduna axis because of the passenger surge.
I have also told them to shut down Warri-Itakpe just to enable us to feed Abuja-Kaduna.
“ But even if we do that, we will be taking away about 200 passengers and we will still be left with about 1,900 passengers to cater for.
New coaches expected
“We are however expecting new coaches by November. By November, we should have new Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs.) We will introduce ten and I hope the ten can reduce the pressure. But even if it does not, between December and January, we will have more.”
The Managing Director of NRC , Mr Fidelis Okhiria, said he was not aware of such activities in the NRC , adding that to rid ticket racketeering over 112 companies applied for the online railway ticketing contract but that only three were shortlisted for the contract.
Online ticketing
According to him, the online ticketing will address issues of overcrowded stations, security challenges and ticket racketeering.
On the contract for online ticketing and when it is likely to start, Okhiria said, “It is not the online ticketing that is the problem. I can download an online app that people can use now.
“But we have to consider the hardware and secure the station so that people without tickets won’t access the platform.
Security
“We also have to talk about the security of the online system we are putting in place so that the ticket can take them in.
“For instance, with online ticketing, if you buy a ticket to take you from Idu to Kubwa, the online platform must ensure that it does not take you beyond that.
“The physical infrastructure has to also be in place. If ten passengers enter the train, I should be able to look at it from my system.
“The Director of Operations has to be able to see it too. So, that is the way we are going. We want to have a system in which if you buy a ticket to take you to Kubwa, the ticket will not grant you access to go beyond that, as it is done outside the country.
“We need physical equipment on the ground to have it come to fruition.”
It is estimated that the e-ticket sale will generate N16 billion by 2029. The Director-General of Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Mr. Chidi Izuwah, revealed that the sale of an online ticket for train services would hit N16 billion by 2029.
Full business certificate
He disclosed during the presentation of the Full Business Certificate for the concession of the e-ticketing system to the Minister of Transportation recently.
Izuwah said: “Financial model shows that NRC and the federal government will earn over N16 billion as revenue from e-ticketing by 2029. That will provide additional revenue for the government. So basically, we have turned a problem into an opportunity.”
Highlighting the benefits of the e-ticketing system, Izuwah explained that the objective of the project was to increase revenue generation through the reduction of fraud and also increase passenger fare purchase options.
Fare dual hub
“We want to increase passenger convenience by introducing the fare dual hub. This will also improve service welfare to passengers and create a wider aisle of fare policies through additional added value because those tickets can also carry adverts and become a substantial part of revenue.”
Responding to the introduction of e-ticketing sale as the solution to ticket racketeering, the minister said: “I agree that it is a solution to the madness that we have in Rigasa station down to Idu.
“But the most important solution is the provision of more coaches and locomotives. This will go a long way to reduce the madness because if people can buy their tickets from their offices and homes, they will not be coming to the train station to cause the chaos we are seeing there.
“The moment we get more coaches, we will completely eradicate the current madness going on in the different stations between Rigasa and Idu,” he said.
At the commencement of the Abuja-Kaduna rail services in 2016 when it was generating N16 million monthly and was incurring expenses to the tune of N56 million, the federal government was reportedly subsidising the operations with over N40 million.
However, with an exponential increase in the number of passengers, coupled with the acquisition of additional coaches and increase in fares from N700 to N1, 300 for the economy class, and from N1, 500 to N2, 500 for the business, the outfit declared that it recorded 400 per cent in its revenue generation.
