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Manpower Development, Key to Efficient Railway System –MD, NRC

The Punch
Ifeanyi Onuba
14 Mar 2008

Manpower development, funding and capacity building have been identified as key to an efficient railway transportation system in Nigeria. Managing Director, Nigeria Railway Corporation, Mr. Jetson Nwankwo, said this at the retreat organised by the Senior Staff Association of NRC branch held on Tuesday, at the Railway Training Institute, Ebute Metta.

Nwankwo, who commended the leadership of the association for maintaining industrial harmony between the corporation’s management and the entire workforce through mutual and constructive negotiations, said that militant and revolutionary style of seeking redress and attention was old fashioned. He said that railway remained an effective mode of transportation in a country like Nigeria with a large population, adding that its impact to individual and national economic growth was massive

According to him, “Various constraints suffered by the NRC which eventually culminated into its dwindling fortunes could be traced to the oil boom era of the ‘60s when super highways, airports of international standards and vehicular bridges were constructed at the outright neglect of the rail transport sub-sector’.

He said, however, the Federal Government, within the ambience of its seven-point agenda, had expressed keen interest on the need to have an effective and dependable rail system in the country,which he noted,would give a significant respite to our roads that had got so dilapidated and almost resisting all known engineering solutions..

Nwankwo also said that in a move to improve the welfare and general working conditions of the workers of NRC, the management of the corporation had inaugurated its National Health Insurance Scheme. On the problem of manpower development, he said 10 personnel of the NRC would be sent to South Korea for necessary training.

Speaking with our correspondent in an interview after the programme, the President-General of the union, Mr. Adetunji Adesunkanmi, said that the government would take the railway system more seriously. He said, “My advice is that the government should be more serious with the exercise. Nigeria Railway Corporation has played a major role in Nigeria and if we go on, the role is still there for it.”

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