Knowing what Nigerians are discussing over the phone is so important for President Jonathan that he awarded two different contracts for the same purpose in less than two months, Premium Times reports.
On August 31, 2010, less than six months after he became acting president, Jonathan awarded an approximately N6billion contract to an Israeli-owned but Abuja-based security firm, V & V Nigeria Limited, for the “Procurement of strategic GSM Tracking System for the Nigeria Police Force and expansion/upgrade of the existing system with the DSS”.
The project was awarded to the contractor by the Ministry of Police Affairs, and was jointly hosted by the Nigeria Police and Nigeria Communication Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT), under the Nigeria Police Reform Programme.
Less than two months after that, on October 21, 2010, another N2.61 billion contract was awarded by the same Ministry of Police Affairs “for the procurement of Strategic GSM Tracking and Interception Systems for the Department of State Services, under the Nigeria Police Reform”.
The second contract, which appears to be a duplicate of the first, was awarded to a British security firm, Gamma TSE Limited, which, according to the information on its website, “manufactures highly specialized surveillance vehicles and integrated surveillance systems, helping government agencies collect data and communicate it to key decision-makers for timely decisions to be made”.
The two projects were, however, neither budgeted for nor listed among contracts approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in 2010. They were also not included in the government’s budget implementation reports for that year.
There is also no indication that the contracts complied with Nigeria’s public procurement law, which requires competitive bidding for government contracts of that magnitude.
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