The Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili on Monday in Abuja defended the award of a N8.2 billion contract for the upgrading of NTA broadcast equipment.

Addressing a news conference with some NTA Board of Directors, Akunyili insisted that due process was followed in the award of the contract, approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) last month.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that N8.2 billion was approved for the upgrading of six out of 10 Outside Broadcast (OB) vans from Standard Definition (SD) to high definition (HD).

The contract was in preparation for NTA’s bid for Host Broadcaster for the FIFA U-17 World Cup scheduled to hold from Oct. 24 to Nov. 15.

The contract was awarded to Messrs WTS-Sony with 15 per cent funding from the station’s internally-generated revenue, while the remaining 85 per cent funding will be provided by the contractor.

Reacting to criticisms which had trailed the cost of the upgrade and the timing, Akunyili argued that neither she nor the ministry was involved in the process or award of the contract.

She noted that media reports on the issue had painted the process in a negative light.

[b]“I make bold to say without any fear of contradiction that I do not know any of the contractors involved in any of the contracts that I have so far presented to the Federal Executive Council.

“I have also never shown interest in knowing the contractors. The most important thing to me is that due process is strictly followed and that Bureau of Public Procurement issued the right certificate for the process to be executed,” she said.

The minister, however, said that she actually met with some officials of the company after FEC approved the contract.

“During the meeting with one Mr Otunba and some four white men whose names I cannot recall, I raised the following points:

“The contract is time-bound and therefore must be executed with dispatched and delivered on time.

“No delay will be entertained. I thereby warned contractors not to give money because it leads to delay, contracts not properly executed and abandoned.

“I added that I did not want this contract to become another Halliburton”, she said.
[/b]
In his contribution, the Director-General of NTA, Mr Usman Magawata, recalled that the process for the award of the contract began since 2007.

He said the Minister of Sports also endorsed the idea of upgrading the equipment in view of the upcoming championship.

Magawata absorbed Akunyili of exercising any influence during the award of the contract.

He said the management of NTA briefed the minister on the details of the contract before it was presented to FEC for approval.

http://thepmnews.com/2009/08/11/akunyili-defends-self-in-n82b-nta-contract

Now here is the twist

FIFA gives Broadcast rights to AIT

Posted: 2009-08-10 12:39

Africa Independent Television (AIT) have been awarded the broadcast rights for this year's FIFA Under-17 World Cup.
FIFA Vice-President, Jack Warner made the announcement at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja at on Saturday.

"I met with Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, FIFA Executive Committee member, Dr. Amos Adamu and the Honourable Minister of Sports, Sani Ndanusa and it was decided that AIT should air the matches," Warner said.

Public broadcaster NTA had acquired new equipment in a bid to secure the host broadcast rights, but Warner suggested the equipment were acquired too late.

"There isn't sufficient time left for us to start testing the new equipment acquired by the NTA, whereas AIT already have the necessary equipment," Warner stated.

AIT also broadcast the Official Draw ceremony on Friday night in Abuja.

The bolded part in the first article shows that she is contradicting herself and noe that the broadcast right has been given  to AIT what happens now?.

Mama Bitch, so you too have been infected with the corruption virus, what sort of equipment will cost N8.2 Billion Naira

all na rebranding

"some four white men"!!! what happened to "a group of four foreigners, or eurpoeans or americans"? is that politically correct?

i no fit shout.

DORA NA GOD GO PUNISH U. THIS WOMAN IS A FRAUD I said DORA AKUNYILI IS MORE ADULTRATED THAN THE FAKE DRUGS SHE WAS FIGHTING AGAINST IN WHEN SHE WAS IN NAFDAC and some fools were insulting me then THIS WOMAN IS CORRUPT!!!!!! U can not deceive all the people all the time.

mbulela:

i no fit shout.

Next episode 

Nezan:

all na rebranding

Na my broda u don see am oooo.

N8.2b!!! These ppl can only deceive themselves. We nigerians have soji-d. We r not stupid. As the info minister, didnt she know when the FIFA VP was goin to come for the assessment? Didnt she know that the sudden decision to "uprgrade" her pocket NTA wud not meet the timeline of the assessment? Its funny wen these silly ppl loot from the nations coffers and then give sum lame explanation. Im not sure really if they are just empty-headed and so cannot come up with a better cover-up for their theft or if they think we r stupid enuf to believe the nonsense!

and the stealing continues,

Shame on Dora Akuyili, is this what her re branding is all about?
Me think Dora needs need to be branded 'OLE'!

Sorry o, but I'm too lazy to do my homework but won't 8 billion naira be enough to put a satellite into orbit?
Why can't they just say the new equipment will cost 100 million naira and then keep the remaining 8.1 billion naira to themselves instead of rubbing it in our faces. May the devil welcome each one of those thieves with fiery arms after a God-sent lightening strike decimates them and theirs.

impish:

"some four white men"!!! what happened to "a group of four foreigners, or eurpoeans or americans"? is that politically correct?

lol cant blame her, are you even sure she said four white men? she said four oyinbo on NTA!!

only God knows what happened to her from her NAFDAC days

this woman lost her reputation the moment she accepted the offer of being the information and communication minister wetin concern pharmacist with journalism.She would hv been better off as a consultant than this sucking post she assumes .9ja haaa square peg in a round hole

Dis Guy:

lol cant blame her, are you even sure she said four white men? she said four oyinbo on NTA!!

only God knows what happened to her from her NAFDAC days

as in, bros, thats wot i thot oh! how archaic and backward coming from an "educated" minister! A prof. abi na so dem talk. who even knows for them?

nethacker:

this woman lost her reputation the moment she accepted the offer of being the information and communication minister wetin concern pharmacist with journalism.She would hv been better off as a consultant than this sucking post she assumes .9ja haaa square peg in a round hole

honestly! Thats our problem in Nigeria

@ poster: What is in your bolded parts warranting to accuse Dora of Corruption? ''I did not know the contractors'' could have meant not knowing them before contracts were awarded. She met them after contract award. How can any right thinking person award contracts to person they did not meet during and/or after the contract award? Please leave the poor woman to do her job.

@@@@@@@@@@EVERYBODY

What i have to say here is still the same issue of our corrupt officials we have in governance.
Points here are:

1. When FIFA has given right to AIT already NTA should not parade themselves anymore as right owners.

2. Upgrading from SD to HD should not at all be that costly some of us read engr. why would you need to upgrade simply purchase new equipment
when you can get to the market and buy a new dvd player why would you bother urself upgrading ur vcd to dvd via ur radionic does it makes
sense no.
3. Finally,some NTA engineers are in for another round of chop make i chop which is destroying our nation till today

May the Good Lord help as a nation

I VE ALWAYS PLEADED ON MADAM NAFDAC TO PLS STAY OFF THE PORTFOLI GIVEN TO HER BY THIS ADMINSTRATION.

ITS JUST A LITMUS TEXT ON HER CREDIBILITY AS AMIST HER PERFOMANCE IN NAFDAC.
I JUST HOPE THOSE TATH LURED HER THERE ARE BEGINNING TO RIP THEIR RESULT.

MADAM, YOU HAVE ALREADY REBRANDED YOURSELF EVEN WITHOUT ACHIEVING 1% OF YOUR REBRANDING PLANS.
GOOD LUCK. ALLOW THEM TO USE U JUST AS OBJ USED UR PREDECESSOR 'NWEKE'.

Nchara:

@ poster: What is in your bolded parts warranting to accuse Dora of Corruption? ''I did not know the contractors'' could have meant not knowing them before contracts were awarded. She met them after contract award. How can any right thinking person award contracts to person they did not meet during and/or after the contract award? Please leave the poor woman to do her job. Jobless folks just loitering on cyber

What does the bolded above really mean? I hope you really know me very well before you make those kind of accusations. Nairaland is a forum where our identities are not known and i will not stoop to your level by callings people names or raining abuses okay. i respect everyone here and believe they are entitled to thier opinions. And whenever i don't like that opinion i ask for clarification. We are all here to learn from each other.

For your information i think you should go back to the post and read very well before replying. I made two bolded paragraph in that write-up and there was no where i was accusing her of corruption as you tend to put it. I was only trying to point out the fact that if she met them after the contract has been awarded, she should say it all in one statement and not boast at first only to later say that she met them after the contract has been awarded. So she is contradicting her first statement that she never met any of the contractors.

this woman is just rubbishing herself more and more everyday.

Her daugters are also marrying "foreigners" and "white men" so what do expect from her Rebranded tongue. She used to be a blessing to This country and women folks but the adverse is the case now.

Fellow Nigerian, thankx for your candid and unanimous contributions, she thinking she is the only corruption free man when indicting my fellow and senior collegue Engr. Ndukwe that he received money from a particular company (Tax free), now her own has open trying to rub peter pay paul, like someone said does she not know that FIFA will come and check he equipment before, now claiming she doesnt know any of the contractors, who ask her such that question? Lets all raise our voice that she needs to me probe.

before that woman gets sacked as minister (always the case with use and dump),
all her good name may be gone with the way she's handling this her new assignment.

My Dear Nairalaner,

One thing we all should know is that she is only a square peg in round hole; ministers in Nigeria are not just there for political reasons they actually make use of information provided to them by the people on ground (civil servant) in this case those are the people in the NTA, especially the Director General. He is suppose to be in position to know that Standard Definition can never be upgraded to High Definition; although she will get all the fire at the end because she relied solely on the information provided to her by the criminals in the ministry instead of doing her own ground work.

It is the DG of the NTA and those who acted as middle guys that the EFCC should invite immidiately for questionning as that will revil so many things.

On the issue of whether they should continue with the HD, I think they should since every network is expected to switch to digital by 2012, now is the best time to do so, as it will be good for NTA to start on HD rather than wait until 2010 or 2012 or 2015 (the final date). So i think whether or not they have the right to host or not they should get the HD it is good for the nation but they should review the cost and ensure that nobody tries to say we are upgrading, instead they should replace completely. If South Africa could have purchase their entire system used for the Conferendation Cup at just $6.8Billion, we can see that someone is not telling us the truth; let us contribute ideas instead of castigating. I blame her for accepting the job, she should have gone to health.

novaman:

My Dear Nairalaner,

One thing we all should know is that she is only a square peg in round hole; ministers in Nigeria are not just there for political reasons they actually make use of information provided to them by the people on ground (civil servant) in this case those are the people in the NTA, especially the Director General. He is suppose to be in position to know that Standard Definition can never be upgraded to High Definition; although she will get all the fire at the end because she relied solely on the information provided to her by the criminals in the ministry instead of doing her own ground work.

It is the DG of the NTA and those who acted as middle guys that the EFCC should invite immidiately for questionning as that will revil so many things.

On the issue of whether they should continue with the HD, I think they should since every network is expected to switch to digital by 2012, now is the best time to do so, as it will be good for NTA to start on HD rather than wait until 2010 or 2012 or 2015 (the final date). So i think whether or not they have the right to host or not they should get the HD it is good for the nation but they should review the cost and ensure that nobody tries to say we are upgrading, instead they should replace completely. If South Africa could have purchase their entire system used for the Conferendation Cup at just $6.8Billion, we can see that someone is not telling us the truth; let us contribute ideas instead of castigating. I blame her for accepting the job, she should have gone to health.

True talk!

I think the moment she accepted to be a Minister of Information For Naija, she placed herself in a vulnerable position.
Now she has to defend every fishy deal of our govt, So sad,

Black_Revo:

now that the broadcast right has been given  to AIT what happens now?.[/b]

The usual thing now.

What happened to the glorified coins that d CBN spent a fortune to produce-- they lie fallow in d vault!

Exatcly wats gonna happen 2 those N8.2zillion worth of equipments.

Deep Soul:

", In his contribution, the Director-General of NTA, Mr Usman Magawata, recalled that the process for the award of the contract began since 2007, "

Let's give her some credit naw. In 2007, she was still dodging bullets from anti-Nafdac assassins!

She wasnt there when the plan was hatched, and what have her daughters being married to "oyinbos" got to ddo with the issue of corruption?

I hope they listen to you. Thanks though

The HD equipment is still very relevant for NTA with or without the world cup. The tourney is only for one month, am sure we all know that the equipment is the future of television, so for NTA if the genuine cost is given they should get it and also retrain their staff even the DG.

May Dora rots in the hell, Stupid old bitch

@purestwat? (error)
am sure you are here today because in her day with NAFDAC she didn't allow those poison called drug send you to hell.

My people we should not all those poison whom she kept out of job in her days with NAFDAC make us give some1 who may eventually be vindicated a bad name. We should have it in mind that most of them are out of jail now and could be getting back at her