Federal Capital Territory minister Mr Bala Mohammed says the funds will come from this year's fuel subsidy savings kitty known as the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (Sure-P). Nigeria is providing $US 323m counterpart funding for phase one, after China's Exim Bank advanced a $US 500m loan.

CCECC was initially scheduled to complete phase one in 36 months and have it commissioned by 2015, but the project is estimated to be only 25% complete because of funding delays and the deadline is likely to be missed.

Further phases are planned to extend the commuter rail network and when fully complete the Abuja Rail Mass Transit system is expected to carry around 2 million commuters per day.