Indications emerged yesterday that the House of Representatives may jettison
its investigation of allegations that ZTE, a company incorporated in China,
took a whopping $470 million and supplied the Federal Government with fake
Close Circuit Television cameras, which allegedly packed up within six months
of installation.
Sunday Mirror learnt from a member of one of the Committees that
were mandated to look into the allegation that it is “unlikely that the report
would be considered this session, because investigations are far from
conclusive”.
He however, did not say if the said investigative exercise would be
concluded when the House returns from its mid-session recess in September.
The Spokesman of the House, Hon. Zakari Muhammed(PDP-Kwara), at a briefing
of House correspondents last week Thursday, told Sunday Mirror that “He was yet
to be briefed on the situation of the probe”, but however promised that he
would “let you (Sunday Mirror) know as soon as I am briefed by the Chairman of
the Joint Committee”.
Earlier on November 30, 2012, the Chairman of the investigating committees,
Hon. Ibrahim Shehu of the Committee on Information and Communication
Technology, said “in the course of the joint committees’ investigation, all
players involved were invited and the committees paid visits to all the
locations. The committee is presently compiling its report and, in a couple of
weeks, the report will be ready and subsequently presented at plenary.”
But nearly two years after they were empanelled, no report is yet to be
presented to the House.
It will be recalled that the House of Representatives, had on Wednesday,
December 8, 2011, mandated its committees on Public Procurement, Aids, Loans
and Debt Management, and Information Technology to investigate the contract of
$470 million awarded to a Chinese company, ZTE Corporation for the installation
of closed circuit television, CCTV, cameras in Abuja, after adoption of a
motion from Hon. Hassan Saleh (Benue).
The House in adopting the motion, had expressed worry that the quality of
materials being used by the Chinese company were alleged to be substandard and
that the poles being used for the CCTV cameras are different from the ones used
by same company in countries like Ghana, Senegal, Morroco and Malaysia.
The House noted that the project was conceived by the government to enable
security agencies to deal with national security challenges and emergency
situations in the country, but the project in its opinion turned out a failure.
According to the mover of the motion, “The National Public Security
Communication System is based in a system known as Global Trunking Architecture
which provides telecommunication and it could be used to monitor elections and
verification of election results as well as disaster management and control.”
The lawmaker expressed concern at the insistence by the Chinese company that
“the contractual details of the transaction with the Federal Government should
not be made public and it is currently shrouded in secrecy which is a clear.
The lawmaker was worried that the Presidency, to worsen matters, was looking
out for a foreign loan to finance projects without recourse to the National
Assembly considering that the country had exited the Paris Club of debtors a
few years ago.
He said, “The Federal Government has made a 15 per cent down payment, which
amounted to N70,500,000 of the total contract sum, and has signed a Sovereign
Guarantee to the tune of $399,500,000 to enable ZTE source for loan from the
Chinese government for the project.”
