Return of $195m maritime security contract reechoes FG’s policy inconsistency
The recent announcement by the Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dakuku Peterside, that the Federal Government has reinstated the controversial maritime security contract, three months after it announced terminating it, has generated serious issues bordering on official policy inconsistency.
It would be recalled that the security contract being championed by the Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, was awarded to an Isreali firm, HLSL Security Systems and Technologies at the cost of $195 million (about N60 billion) to procure security equipment and train Nigerian security personnel to tackle crimes on the nation’s waters.
Due to criticism on the way and shrouded manner it was rushed to implementation without due procurement process, President Muhammadu Buhari, in May announced the cancellation of the contract via a memo dispatched by his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari.
Clearly, the President, in the memo, directed the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, to terminate the contract with immediate effect.
Besides, the presidency through it failed to query anybody involved, further ordered the National Security Adviser (NSA) and the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA) to investigate how the contractor obtained security clearance for the job without an end user certificate.
Part of the recovery measures of the government having made upfront payment of $50m was an order to the Israeli firm to supply items equivalent to the paid hard currency.
It was also gathered that part of the key reasons that forced the government to abandon the deal was reports from Israel alleging upfront bribery scandal linked to the deal and questioning of some key officials of the Israeli firm by Tel-Aviv.
Though it was not revealed by the government that findings by both NSA and NIA did not see any infractions or procedural breaches, NIMASA DG while fielding questions from journalists in Lagos on Wednesday, said the contract was initially stalled as a result of investigation on the status of the firm.
According to him, “At some point, there were issues raised about the status of the firm and indeed the President directed that further investigations be made on the status and record of the firm.
“The status of the firm had been investigated earlier but new information came up and based on that, the President directed that the firm be further investigated. The firm was further investigated and given a clean bill of health and of course, we are on with the project.
“It was a contractor financed programme. They are supposed to deliver a number of security items including special mission vessels, special mission aircraft, helicopters, command and control centre and retrain a number of our military personnel. That contract is still in place. Nobody has cancelled the contract.”
Though NIMASA claimed further that the contract awarded to HLSL was not to take over maritime security in Nigeria but to train and complement the effort of the nation’s security personnel, security analysts still see the deal as letting away the territorial integrity of the nation to a foreign body after all.
