Reps uncover N5bn scandal in rural telephony project

Bola Badmus, Abuja - 25.04.2008

House of Representatives on Thursday uncovered how contractors working on rural telephony for the country collected N5 billion without doing the job.

Indeed, since the money was paid to them for the execution of Phase 2 of the Rural Telephony project, the Federal Ministry of Communications cannot precisely say it has shown the respective contractors namely ZT, Huame and Shanghai Bell the exact sites the projects should be located in the local government areas approved for them by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) under the administration of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The House also heard how the former president was made to inaugurate one of the projects sited around the National Assembly done under Phase 1 but was temporarily interconnected by NITEL and thereafter stopped working.

These revelations came as the former minister of communications, Dr. Femi Anibaba, appeared before the House Committee on Communications headed by Hon. Jerry Manwe.

Hon. A. O. Manwe and others expressed shock that the success story painted by the former minister was wrong, saying no where was rural telephony system working in the country despite the huge money sunk into it.

The Obasanjo’s administration had committed about $250 million to the execution of the projects that would be sited in all the 774 local government areas of the country.