Official papers has revealed the reason why minster of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi’s proposal for the procurement of a security surveillance solution was rejected by the Federal Executive Council.
According to PREMIUM TIMES, the minister awarded the contract for the procurement to a company without the required capacity to deliver the digital solution.
The proposal by the Minister had sought for the purchase of an electronic surveillance system and interrogation unit on the Abuja (Idu)-Kaduna (Rigasa) 200km railway monitoring rail intrusion detection system and emergency response system but the FEC faulted the minister’s proposal for not stating the required details on the capacity of the equipment and even the firm.
A part of the memo read, “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.”
The memo added that the Vice President Osinbajo, asked the ministry to provide a “further description of the equipment, its brand name, manufacturer and how it worked.”
Recall that the transport minister had said that the attack on the Abuja-Kaduna train would have been averted if the security measures were in place.
