Leaked memos have revealed that minster of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi’s proposal for the procurement of a security surveillance solution was rejected by the Federal Executive Council because the minister awarded the contract for the procurement to a company without the required capacity to deliver the digital solution.
Mr Amaechi said the attack on a Kaduna- bound train on Monday would have been averted if the equipment had been installed.
“The process is tedious. You know if these items were here…..drones would have told you that there were people walking around here. There are drones that pick censor,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the process has not been able to get us the approval that we need to acquire these items. What you need is a camera that tells you to look o, ten to twenty meters away from the train or hundred kilometres from the train, there is human activity, they are unknown persons carrying guns, then you can take precautions, ” Mr Amaechi said.
Memos
The leaked memos marked EC (2021)236, revealed that the (FEC) meeting was chaired by Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, on 24 September 2021.
The minutes of the meeting showed that the firm recommended by Mr Amaechi, Mogjan Nigeria Limited, was incorporated on the 6 of August 2019 and has a turnover of N84.9m.
Quoting a top presidency source, the Punch Newspaper said the proposal was rejected because there were issues with the capacity of the firm to deliver an issue of conflict of interest.
“We had doubts about the capability of a company, which was formed less than two years prior and had no track record of handling a contract of N3.7bn or a contract on surveillance systems.”
But the memos showed that the council members pointed out that the minister didn’t give the required details on the capacity of the equipment and even the firm.
Some members expressed concern about the quality of the memorandum as there was no description of the surveillance system concept note, brand name, country of manufacture or review by the previous user to enable them to make informed decisions.
“They stated that as sophisticated as the surveillance system was touted to be, there were no indications that it had been demonstrated and tested by the security technology agencies. They equally observed that all the projects were lumped together under one budget line, which they noted was not good enough as each rail line project was supposed to be captured in its budget line,” a part of the memo read.
While Mr Osinbajo sought more description of how the system would work when installed, Chief of Staff to the President, Ibrahim Gambari, wanted to know if the equipment will be installed across all rail lines in the country and if there would be training for railway staff.
Mr Amaechi responded that the equipment was meant to be the pilot and would be later replicated across the country if it succeeded.
The memo added that the chairman of the meeting, Mr Osinbajo, asked the ministry to provide a “further description of the equipment, its brand name, manufacturer and how it worked.”
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