The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has commended the Lagos State Government on the progress achieved in the construction of the Red rail line.

CBN’s Director of Development Finance, Mr Philip Yila, said this while leading the bank’s delegation to access the level of work done on the Lagos Red rail line in Ikeja on Thursday.

He said, “I’m here with some of my colleagues to do some project monitoring and evaluation. It is one thing to disburse funds through the bank to the various sectors of the economy, but most importantly, we do monitor and evaluate how those funds are utilised.”

“We are impressed with the progress made so far with the Red rail line; we’ve disbursed most of the funds and we look forward to the first quarter of 2023 when the project will be running. Most of the work already done is quite impressive, it is a signature project and I look forward to riding the line come Q1 2023.”

“Lagos is the economic hub of the country and once you can move people around in an efficient manner, you can imagine the growth that is going to come out of that.”

The Managing Director, Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority, Mrs Abimbola Akinajo, said, “This is one of the eight stations that LAMATA is building on the Redline and for now, we are well advanced, we are expecting all infrastructure to be completed by the end of the year.”

“That programme is set in stone and we don’t have a challenge at meeting that deadline. In terms of operation, we are expected to start testing the line by the end of the year but by the first quarter of 2023, we will have operation starting as promised by the Governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu.”

Punch/Maxwell Oyekunle