Reps to probe FCT’s $460m CCTV contract

The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, James Faleke, said on Thursday the House would investigate the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) contract which was awarded for $460million.

Faleke, who disclosed this during 2020 budget defence of the Ministry of Finance and National Planning at the National Assembly in Abuja, said the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, had been directed to submit all relevant documents on the matter for thorough scrutiny.

The minister was also asked to remove expenditure on furniture, phone bills and other miscellaneous from the ministry’s 2020 budget.

He said: “Before this administration, we have collected some loans and the one that strikes me the most is the $460 million for CCTV installation in Abuja. We want to know the position of this loan, I am sure we are paying back but the CCTV is not working.

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“Any time we take a loan from China, the Chinese will come and do the job. They will bring all their equipment, the personnel, and the goods and yet we do not have value for the money especially that of the CCTV.

“Where are we? We need you to look into it and send us a memo on this particular project.”

Ahmed told the Committee that only the Federal Capital Territory Authority (FCTA) can sufficiently provide the needed answers on the matter.

She said most of the projects were financed by the Chinese.

The minister said: “We are servicing the loan but on the project, we will have to ask the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Authority because the project was deployed in the FCT. I have no information on the status of the CCTV.

“The conditions of the loans that we take from China always will be that a Chinese company will provide infrastructure services.

“These are loans that are of three percent. The rails lines are being rolled out, the Abuja-Kaduna – Lagos-Ibadan rails are all loans from China and are being executed by Chinese companies.”

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