I’ll Name Saboteurs Of FG’s $195m Waterways Contract – Amaechi

Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, has threatened to expose alleged saboteurs of Nigerian government’s $195 million contract to an Israeli firm for the nation’s waterways safekeeping.

Recall that the government’s bid to award the said contract to one HLSI Firm Security and Technology in Israel was stalled after 10 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) petitioned the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, of the risks of placing the nation’s waterways security in the hands of foreigners.

The House Committee on Public Petitions had consequently summoned Amaechi alongside Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Ibok Ekwe Ibas, and the Director-General, Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dakuku Peterside, to explain their individual roles in the bid to award the said contract to a foreign contractor.

But speaking on Thursday at the 2nd stakeholder’s interactive forum organised by NIMASA in Warri, Delta state, Amaechi threatened to name those frustrating the Federal Government’s bid to safeguard the country’s waterways.

“For ship-owners, you need to do a petition to the President, you need to behave like activists and learn to be like students. The President approved a contract of $195million and there are people in the system sabotaging that contract. The contract is to that restore security in the nation’s water,” said the minister.

“I won’t say who they are until it gets out of control. We are still battling for the contract to take place but if it gets out of place we will name them including the security people.

“These are people who make billions of dollars from the water so they don’t want security on the water because if we secure the water all this rubbish will go,” he said.