Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government risk being entangled in court battles with Safaricom over unpaid Sh18.3 billion for the security communication and surveillance project.
Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery yesterday said that initially, part of the agreement entered between Safaricom and the government was that the later would give out some frequencies and Sh6 billion for the entire project to be completed.
But Nkaissery said that the government failed to honour its side of the bargain within 24 months and hence, attracted a total expense of Sh18.3 billion for the entire project.
Nkaissery told the National Assembly Committee on Administration and National Security that during the Financial Year 2016/17 supplementary budget, Sh10.3 billion was allocated to repay the first phase of installment.
He said that in the current Financial Year, a loan of Sh8 billion was sourced the second phase of installment
The CS now wants Parliament to intervene and ensure that the total amount is paid to avert litigations.
“The State Department is likely to face litigations from contractors for the bills that have remained unpaid. These are matters of national security which can’t be taken lightly,” said Nkaissery.
He said that the project was meant for installation of a command control center and 1800 CCTV cameras in Nairobi, Mombasa and other environs.
Nkaissery also wants Parliament to petition his National Treasury counterpart Henry Rotich to allocate Sh3.5 billion to equip the national police service forensic laboratory and make it operational.
He said that financial constraints in his ministry have made the project to stall at the second phase.
“The laboratory is meant to enhance forensic investigations and is one of the vision 2030 flagship projects. We want it to be operational like yesterday,” Nkaissery said.
He said that his ministry had earlier to set up a wall along the Somalia-Mandera boarder but afterwards resorted to erecting a wire akin to that at Mexico-US border.
But Nkaissery said that the project has stalled due to lack of budgetary allocation from the government.
He said: “After a thorough study and survey on how to secure our country, we realized that we can secure it by putting up a wire fence like that at Mexico-United States boarder. I can’t tell the completion period of that project because we have not received any funding from the government”.
