By Ben Agande

ABUJA- House of Representatives, Wednesday, 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.

In a motion by Mr. Hassan Saleh, yesterday, the House expressed worry that the quality of materials being used by the Chinese company was alleged to be sub-standard 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.

Giving a background to the project, Mr. Saleh 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.

He said: “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 violation of the doctrine of transparency, accountability and an infringement of the laws of the country.”

Saleh expressed concern that the executive arm of government was embarking on collection of foreign loan to finance projects without recourse to the National Assembly few years after the country had exited the Paris Club of debtors.

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.”

It would be recalled that after the bomb blast at the police head-quarters and other areas in the FCT, Federal Government embarked on the installation of CCTV cameras in strategic areas in Abuja to beef up security.