The Federal Executive Council (FEC) Wednesday approved N1.2 billion for the procurement of security gadgets for railway stations across the country.
Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said seven railway stations would benefit from the project, which has a completion period of twelve months.
“We presented a memo for the supply, deployment, installation, testing and commissioning of security equipment for seven railway stations, mainly Idu, Rigasa, Jere, Kubwa, Kaduna and Kano, in the sum of N1,208,335,464.60, inclusive of 7.5% tax with a completion period of 12 months,” he said.
The minister said the decision to install security gadgets is in line with the desire to enhance the safety of passengers and workers at the railway stations.
Also speaking, the Director General of Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Mr Mamman Ahmadu, said the council also approved N1.6 billion for the establishment of e-government procurement.
He said the new platform would help eliminate corruption and enhance the country’s procurement process.
“Today, BPP presented a memo on e-government procurement. E-government procurement has the potential of improving the procurement process, eliminating corruption and reducing the leak time in the procurement process itself.
“There have been a lot of complaints about the long time it takes to go through the due process. With the establishment of this, we will reduce that time.
“It also removes subjectivity from the process. There have been lots of complaints about subjectivity in the approval process, that will be dealt with squarely when it is eventually launched,” he said.
He said the establishment of e-government procurement process was in line with the current global trend.
“E-government procurement is a global trend and from the research carried out by the World Bank, it has been established that countries that have taken off with e-government procurement have witnessed exponential economic growth, and they have stimulated ICT in those countries.
“It will reduce corruption to the barest minimum because it will reduce the human interface within the process. The overall cost is about N1.6 billion,” he said.
