Nigeria Meteorological Agency(NIMET) has been at the center of a raging storm in the aviation industry.In this interview with LEADERSHIP’s Kingsley Alu, the Director-General of the agency, Dr.Anthony Anuforom,speaks on issues critical to safety in the industry and lots more.
The European Union financed the upper air sounding system for Nigeria a long time ago. Does it still function as in other countries, if yes how many launches do you have per day? The rule says at least two.
It is true that some time ago the European Union through a project we call AMA project funded or rather donated an upper air sounding equipment which was installed in Abuja, it is still working and every day we do one sounding.
Let me also add that upper air sounding is a very expensive exercise. Under the AMA project, the European Union gave us consumables.It takes a lot of consumables, you need some chemicals to generate hydrogen gas.
The hydrogen gas is used to inflate the balloons and then a transmitter (radio sound) is attached to it and so we release it to the atmosphere, now each sounding costs between three hundred and four hundred dollars, so if you convert three hundred to four hundred dollars to naira, you know what it means.
It’s an expensive exercise. Under AMA project, EU gave us consumables that would last for one year but since then, we have on our own through funding from the federal government, procured more consumables and also even expand the number of upper air stations from one four years ago, to almost seven, and I must say that it is unprecedented in the history of meteorological operations in Nigeria.
But talking about upper air station, when this management came on board about four years ago, the only upper air station in Nigeria was the one we are talking about, that is the one installed in Abuja and that one was just by donation but since then, we have increased the number.
We have one in Maiduguri, one in Enugu, one in Lagos and we have procured the equipment for Calabar, Jos and Yola. So that will make it a total of 7 upper air stations.
A contract in the region of $13million was awarded to EEC, an American company for the supply of the Doppler Weather Radar, we know that in the past they defaulted in their contractual agreement obligations to the Nigerian government, why are you still dealing with them? Again the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency(NAMA) has TRACON which displays weather information as well, why are you duplicating the contract?
I am not aware of any default of contractual obligation, I am aware that we have some EEC old radars but then, I was not in the system then, but it was a long time ago and at that time, this place was not an agency, it was not a parastatal, it was far before 2003, before the then meteorological department became an agency which is now known as NIMET in 2003. The one you are referring to was far before that, whatever happened then was between the ministry and that company or the representative of that company, it was not NIMET.
We commenced the present one in 2008, and it was awarded to EEC after following due process. The contract was actually first awarded in 2007, it was signed before I became DG, but shortly after, there were petitions from some other companies that bided to the federal government and then the government in response took another look, and after careful study of the whole process, it was discovered to be very transparent and at the end of the day, the job was still awarded to EEC and the present contract in the form it is, was finally signed in 2008 and implementation started, so there is no default in any way.
The NAMA TRACON, is different from Doppler Weather Radar.TRACON does not display weather, in fact, it is not designed to display weather. It is only designed to pick metallic objects in the atmosphere like the aeroplane, that’s all it does; it does not pick clouds and thunderstorms.
This one is called the Doppler Weather Radar. They are not the same, they do not do the same thing, it is not a repetition, and it is the same thing that happens in other countries, that one is called the ATCR that is Air Traffic Control Radar. It is different and distinct from weather radar, we are not doing any repetition in any way at all, that is what it is everywhere.
How far have you gone with the radar you are installing at the National Weather Forecasting and Climate Research Centre in Abuja?
We had some difficulty at some stage and that was what caused the delay, may be we would have gone farther than we are today. The company raised issues about the Customs tariff they were given. You know they needed some further clarification and that took some time, it has nothing to do with NIMET anyway because the contract is a total package; they were responsible to manufacture, ship, do the clearing and install.
Ours is whenever they finish, they say ‘come and take it over’ and we will take over. The delay has nothing absolutely to do with NIMET. That notwithstanding, because it is a project that is of interest to the Nigerian government, we had to wade in. Thank God with the support of our ministry the matter was resolved and the contract proceeded.
Today, the equipment has been cleared from the port and delivered.We are going to have one in Abuja, Kano, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Yola and Maiduguri.The one in Abuja like you have rightly said, has gone up. You can see that beautiful installation, 130 foot tower standing boldly there, making a bold statement that we are working, we are transforming, I mean I feel so excited and passionate about it.
We are expecting the electrical engineers from the United States to arrive probably this coming weekend (last weekend) or early next week (this week) to do the electrical connection and that is it.
Are we looking at between now and the next one or two months?
Yes for this particular one. From here the mechanical team is moving to Port Harcourt,they will also get that of Port Harcourt to this level in the next five or six weeks because it is a whole lot of job, it is not bread and butter business. Then from there, they will move to other locations, but I can tell you that between now and the next few months, those radars, all of them will be working and they will be integrated.
The way we have designed it is that, in that our weather centre, we are going to create a room where you can monitor what is happening in each of the six radars, so it is an integrated system, that’s where we are, but it’s not bread and butter business, I can tell you that, it is involving.
I have sent twenty four engineers and meteorologists and forecasters to EEC in Alabama United States to train in repair, maintenance and operation of radar.
I am aware you know about this site, Dune and Broadstreet, information on it has it that the technical partner of Silver bells,the company you awarded the contract for the supply of Wind Shear Alert System, that is MTECH of Australia, has no particular experience in Nigeria to provide after sales training and spare parts.It was also revealed that they are a minor company that has changed name several times, they are also cash strapped and have numerous court cases. This again is about the integrity of the company that is handling such a critical safety project for Nigeria .
Why did you choose to dine with them?
Several factors came into play. We advertised, we went through all the processes, that company did not come autonomously because it is not registered in Nigeria, that’s one, but they have a Nigerian company,Silverbells Pty, Ltd. that has them as technical partner, that is point number two. When we did that advert, of course there were other companies, about three or four companies or five responded, make no mistake about it, no Nigerian company manufactures LLWAS, each of the companies that responded came with a letter that they have overseas technical partners. When we looked at all the information, we did not want to just take it on the surface by just looking at the paper, we said ‘if you have technical partner, bring that technical partner from wherever they are in the world to come and make presentation to us so that we can also ask them questions one- on -one not by letter or email.’
It was only one of these companies that brought its technical partner, the others that showed up were the normal Nigerian companies, they did not go beyond showing us letter, only one company(Silverbells) and that therefore weighed heavily in their favour. It proved further to us that there is credibility in their claim.
The other factor was the issue of pricing. The company we awarded the contract gave us the lowest price we considered was competitive. If we had gone to the next higher bidder, Nigeria would have spent 96 million naira more to execute this project. Nigeria would have spent over 120million naira more if we gave it to the next bidder.
We looked at all these in totality, I do not know how I could have explained it to Nigeria that this company came and told us with confidence that they could do it at a certain amount, then we went ahead to award it to another company we considered a ‘big company’ and Nigeria would spend 96 million naira more. It would have been more difficult for me to explain.
On the issue of capability, we have done the site acceptance test for Lagos, the company has finished and delivered, so I don’t know what else to say about capability. They have moved to Port Harcourt, in the next few weeks, it would be delivered, after that, they will move to Kano.
Talking about experience, of course the Procurement Act gives parameters, but I am not sure it says that unless a company has done a job, unless they show they have done a job, don’t give them a job, but of course if they have experience, it’s a plus, but if they also have capacity, it doesn’t have to be in Nigeria.
Let me tell you this, we have an issue in this country, there are some companies, we know them in our industry, once they lose a bid, they go all out to blackmail the agency, blackmail the ministry, blackmail the minister, the DG because they lost.For them, it must be them or nobody.
Secondly, their prices were scandalously too high, some of them are involved in cases in court, I do not want to mention names, they are involved in accusation of contract inflation, they are involved in cases of bribery, they have cases to answer.
LLWAS is a meteorological equipment and we are convinced that the company the contract was awarded to manufactures meteorological equipment and they are working, not only in Nigeria, don’t forget that we are not dealing with them directly, if you go to their website, you will see where they are implementing projects worldwide not only in Nigeria.
From our records, from January last year to June this year, we have sponsored people on over 400 if not 500 training opportunities and when I said training opportunities; workshops, seminars, formal trainings including the LLWAS we are talking about. Last year I sent twelve officers to go to this company in Australia, six of them were engineers and the other six or so were meteorologists and forecasters to go and train.
If you look at records at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, what we are doing is unprecedented. Look at our capacity building efforts, our National Weather Forecasting and Climate Research Centre in Abuja, look at our Doppler Weather Radar, our LLWAS, the Upper Air Sounding stations, moving from one that was a donation to seven that are results of our own effort, you can’t beat that.