Sam Amadi: Any government tackling economic crisis should make cargo tracking priority

Sam Amadi, director of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, says any government working to address the country’s economic crisis should make cargo tracking a priority.

Amadi, a former chair of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), was speaking on the need for the country to have a cargo tracking system.

The federal government awarded the contract for that purpose to P-Lyne Energy Limited in July. The company is meant to provide solution technology in the country’s oil and gas sector.

However, the same contract was first awarded by the Muhammadu Buhari administration to Antaser Nigeria Limited in 2023 to implement a cargo tracking system for 15 years.

Addressing a press conference in Abuja, Amadi said it is important that Nigeria’s Cargo Tracking Note (CTN) must have “international credibility” to be taken seriously.

“Any government battling with insecurity and an economic crisis as serious as what we have here should have made this project one of its priorities,” he said.

“Arms and ammunition are being discovered almost on a monthly basis within our borders.

“The Nigerian Shippers Council must, as a matter of urgency, be allowed to immediately implement its already concluded contract and save this country any prolonged legal issues and further ridiculing internationally.

“We would not like to interrogate the cultist-like procurement process that threw up these contractors to save the perpetrators the embarrassment of full exposure of the rot in our processes to the world.

“BPP can not issue another no objection certificate to another company on an already awarded contract, whether in full, in part, or even called a different name, having access to the scope of work therein.”

Amadi said the CTN was designed to indemnify the country against 95 percent of all trade vices that erode security and revenue leakages.