THE Managing Director of Vlanicom Limited Edmond Osita Osiegbu has said that his company duly discharged its responsibilities when contracted by the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) in 2011.
Vlanicom, formerly known as Vlatacom, had been alleged in an earlier investigation co-published by The ICIR, of being involved in a controversial contract of $345,000.
The report had stated that a contract agreement existed between the Nigeria Immigration Service and Vlatacom Limited in 2007 for chip-based electronic visa recognition, called e-Pass.
“Even more strangely, after the huge sum was paid, the House Report noted that five years later, since 2012, ‘all maintenance, deployment, configuration and troubleshooting of the e-Pass applications and its associated hardware’ was carried out by ‘the ICT officers of the NIS and not Vlatacom,” the investigation read in part.
However, Osiegbu, in a letter to The ICIR on Friday, said the allegations contained in the report were untrue, adding that, “the said contracts are subjects of litigation at the High Court of the FCT.”
He said against the claim made in the report, his company only entered a contract with the NIS in 2011, and not 2007.
“Let it be known to all that Vlatacom Limited did not enter into any contract whatsoever with the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) in 2007.
“Furthermore, Vlatacom Limited effectively and diligently discharged its responsibilities in the contract that was executed between it and the NIS in the year 2011.”
The managing director also said that his company did not collect any money from the NIS for any job it did not do nor request payment of any sum not due to it.
“Let it also be known that the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) did not pay any sum of money whatsoever to Vlatacom for work not done neither has Vlatacom requested for payment of any sum, not due to it, and the NIS has no record of Vlatacom refusing or failing to perform any of its responsibilities in the said contracts.”
'Niyi worked with The ICIR as an Investigative Reporter and Fact-checker from 2020 till September 2022. You can shoot him an email via niyioyedeji1@gmail.com. You can as well follow him on Twitter via @niyi_oyedeji.