Budadiri West MP Nandala Mafabi, who blew the lid on the multi-billion internet deal, says if Huawei Technologies is awarded the contract for the National Backbone Infrastructure project, taxpayers will stand to lose no less than Shs40 billion. Mafabi argues that awarding the contract to the Chinese firm is so suspicious it could only have been with connivance of some top officials in government.
The National Information Technology Authority (NITA) has some explaining to do and Parliament wants to get to the bottom of how procurement the agency’s fourth phase of National Backbone infrastructure (NBI) project was handled because ‘there is something fishy about the deal.’
Parliament has launched a probe into how NITA came to award a multi-billion contract to Huawei technologies after Budadiri West MP Nathan Nandala Mafabi blew the lead on the procurement process, citing gross anomalies that could see taxpayers lose more than UGX43 billion if the contract is approved.
In a petition, MP Mafabi called on the Inspectorate of Government (IGG to intervene and stop the “fraudulent award” of tender for the contract to Huawei Technologies.
The Chinese firm is particularly not in the good books across many countries, something Mafabi capitalised on by detailing how the firm has been banned elsewhere over various controversial and corruption-related issues.
Anastacia Tshesane to become PwC SA CEOIn his dossier, Mafabi cited the bid opening meeting held in October 2017 where Huawei’s bid price was reported to be around USD16 million (about UGX57 billion), which is the most expensive among the six bidders. The lowest bid price was put at around USD12 million (about UGX44 billion), something the legislator described as a “clear corruption in this bid process.”
The documents tabled before Parliament indicates that six firms expressed interest in the tender with each quoting various bid prices namely; Klawanchi Telecom-USD12,054,035, Camusat-USD13,689,909, ZTE-USD 13,701.54, BCS&Fiber HOME-USD14,089,451, Raubex-15,791.63, and Huawei USD15,800,000.
The Legislator warned that if the tender is approved, Government is set to lose Shs43Billion, an allegation that prompted Annet Nyakecho, ICT Committee Chairperson to ask Mafabi to explain how government would lose money if NITA went into contract with Huawei.
“The higher the bid price, the more money spent on a contract. This means that if the contract is given to the ones (bidders) with lower bid prices, less will be spent by the government, and if Huawei wins the deal, a lot of tax payers money will be spent,
