Following months of capturing data of Nigerians, the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, is seeking N25 billion to procure more servers for the storage of National Identity Number enrolment records.
In view of this, the commission is to submit its proposal to the Federal Executive Council.
Daily Trust reports that the Director-General of NIMC, Aliyu Abubakar Aziz, disclosed this on Tuesday while appearing before the Senate Public Accounts Committee, which is probing the agency over alleged non-compliance with the Public Procurement Act on the award of N229 million contract.
According to Aziz, 57 million persons have, so far, been registered, and as such, 90 servers were needed to register 100 million Nigerians.
“For us to reach 100 million, we will need 90 servers. We have enrolled 57 million as of today. We will ask for N25 billion at FEC tomorrow to buy more server to take the whole of the population,” he said.
In a 2017 report, the Auditor-General of the Federation said NIMC, in October, 2017 procured 22 units of servers at a cost of N229.7 million with no evidence of Ministerial Tender’s Board approval.
Responding to this, the Director-General claimed that the contract falls within the threshold of the Commission’s Tenders Board and that all the servers had been supplied before the initial payment of 45 percent which represents part payment and not mobilization due to paucity of funds.
He also said the contract was a continuation of procurement of Enterprise Servers and Storage Solution and Equipment which was awarded in 2012.
However, the chairman of the committee, Senator Matthew Urhoghide, faulted NIMC’s move to continue the 2012 Procurement process in 2017.
“We supposed to do status enquiry on your Commission because it looks like all your documents are muddled up,” the lawmaker said.