Friday, 29th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

ZTE ready for House of Reps probe over $470m CCTV contract

By Adeyemi Adepetun
24 February 2016   |   1:50 am
TELECOMMUNICATIONS firm, ZTE Corporation, has expressed confidence that the current probe into the $470 million National Public Security Communication System (NPSCS) project will finally put to rest all public misconceptions about the project. In a statement, ZTE Managing Director, Hao Fuqiang, said: “We welcome this probe because we are sure we will come out clean.…
House Of Representatives

House Of Representatives

TELECOMMUNICATIONS firm, ZTE Corporation, has expressed confidence that the current probe into the $470 million National Public Security Communication System (NPSCS) project will finally put to rest all public misconceptions about the project.

In a statement, ZTE Managing Director, Hao Fuqiang, said: “We welcome this probe because we are sure we will come out clean. We have consistently maintained that the project was fully completed and final texts completed. The Acceptance certificates are available for scrutiny.

“We are also proud that we built and delivered one of the most sophisticated security communication tools for the Nigerian government and Nigerian people. We believe the probe will unravel why the equipment’s were left unutilized and allowed to waste.

“Though this is the third time this project is being probed, we welcome it and will give full cooperation to the committee because it is an opportunity for us to state our own side of the story. We hope that the government will do all within its powers to resuscitate this very important project.”

It could be recalled that the former Managing Director of Nigcomsat, Engineer Timasaniyu Ahmed- Rufai told the House of Representatives “Ad-Hoc Committee to Investigate the Award of CCTV Cameras in Abuja and Lagos during the public session “that the project was fully completed by ZTE but that the Federal Government failed to operate and maintain it.

Already, President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to beam his anti-corruption searchlight on the Close Circuit Television (CCTv) contract awarded in 2010 to ZTE Corporation.

The contract covered the provision CCTV in Lagos and Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to address the growing security concerns in the country.

To finance the project, the Federal Government made a first installment payment of $70.5 million (15 per cent) while China’s Exim Bank provided the balance of $399.5 million as a loan to be repaid at three per cent interest per annum over a 10 year period.

Today, though some 2,000 cameras have been installed by ZTE, representing but a fraction of the total expected, the project is yet to be successfully tested or commissioned.

Jaiye Ashton, a social critic, at the weekend, alleged that the project was bedeviled by dysfunctional systems and components, broken units occasioned by explosions from installed batteries of the CCTV cameras.

0 Comments