From Fred Itua, Abuja
The Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights (CASER) has raised the alarm over alleged corruption in the purchase and management of Cargo Tracking Device (CTN), which is meant to monitor import and export of cargo coming and going out of the country.
CASER Executive Director Frank Tietie, in a statement on Wednesday, claimed that
the inability of Nigeria to implement the CTN has made the country lose billions of dollars in revenue because of what he called unscrupulous importers who connive with unpatriotic and corrupt port officials to the under-declare value of imports.’
Tietie added that two companies earmarked by the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi for the resuscitation of the ECTN in Nigeria, would spell doom as it has never managed ports security and revenue collection.
‘One of the companies is a medical equipment company and the other is a real property development firm owned by two Lebanese, whose co-nationals have had a certain reputation for doing business in a manner in Nigeria.
‘The two said companies have never had the faintest history of management of ports security and revenue collection for any government yet they handpicked by the Nigerian Shippers Council with a Presidential approval for Direct Procurement Method issued to the Federal Ministry of Transportation.
‘In the face of these mounting evidence of incompetence, fraudulent misrepresentation, manifest corruption in the choice of companies without the least capacity to implement the ECTN and, Flagrant Breach of the Public Procurement Act, instead of the promoters of this gargantuan fraud against the Nigerian state to call off their most unfortunate enterprise of national deceit and an expensive joke taken too far, they have stretched their conceited determination, by further procuring a third company.
‘This latest face-saving act by the syndicate in appointing a foreign technical partner to stem the growing tide of condemnation among some conscientious public servants, that has come to seal the grand scale corruption that is about to be perpetrated against Nigeria through the ECTN scheme.
‘It must be resisted! No matter how far they have gone, even in misrepresenting fact (practically lying) to the President, they must be stopped or else the Federal Government will find the consequences of allowing this malfeasance to be too costly to bear of revenue loss and security concerns,’ he said.
He called on President Muhammadu Buhari to ‘immediately apply brakes to the speedy illegalities and underlying corruption associated with the appointment of an agent to implement the ECTN in Nigeria.’