$460m failed Abuja CCTV project that won’t go away, and anti-graft agencies keep mum

The scandal surrounding the $460m Failed Abuja CCTV Project would just not go away, almost a decade after, with many shadowy beneficiaries walking free, and Nigeria still servicing the Chinese debt for the non-existent facility.

Today, many of the mounted solar panels, batteries, cameras, and in some cases, poles, have either been vandalised or stolen by lesser thieves.

With probes upon probes, many continue to wonder why anti-graft agencies find it hot to handle and keep theìr distance.

The ruling All Progressives Congress ( APC) says recent disclosures by the finance minister, Zainab Ahmed, that the current administration continues to service a $460 million loan taken from China to fund the phony contract, awarded in August 2010, is a stark reminder why Nigerians must continue to reject the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at all levels of government.

In the House of Representatives this week, Hon. James Faleke of the Finance Committee engaged a helpless Minister Zainab Ahmed. He wondered why the Federal Government was still servicing the loan.

His words, “Before this administration, we collected some loans and the one that strikes me the most is the 460 million dollars for CCTV installation in Abuja.

“I want to know the position of this loan, I am sure we are paying back but the CCTV is not working.

‘Any time we take 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? I need you to look into it and send us a memo on this particular aspect.”

Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, replied: “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.”