The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Interior, Dr. Mohammed Bello Umar has urged the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and Continental Transfert Technique Limited (Contec Global) to sustain its public private partnership initiative for the country’s national development and revenue drive.
Umar, who was led by the Acting Managing Director of the company, Ms. Farida Adam Ali, during a tour of the Combined Expatriate Resident Permit and Alien Card (CERPAC) production facility centre in Abuja, he commended the company for deploying state of the art technology in the production of the card.
According to the Perm Sec, the collaborative initiative between the two organizations needs to be kept alive for the benefit of the country’s national security and revenue drive.
While explaining the rationale for the deployment of the technology, the acting MD, said the facility is set up in 38 centres where expatriates cards are being fast tracked for production using latest biometric security features.
According to her, the company is saddled with providing the technical and manpower expertise at the various production centres across the country for NIS which oversees the administrative aspect of the card.
She said: “We are trying as much as possible using our expertise to give the country through NIS the best technology to manage who comes in and who goes out of the borders and to have a strong data base of foreigners coming into the country.
“We now have 37 Centres across the country with 200 Nigerian network engineers working across these facilities to monitor movement, revenue generation and security.â€
While underscoring the essence of the synergy, she acknowledged that before the deal, foreigners will come into the country without being on NIS data base on business visa, explaining that now, the agency has the data and record of every single person coming into the country with a unique number identification.
Umar and Adam Ali were accompanied by the Assistant Comptroller General of Immigration, Mr. Abdulrasaq Dangiri, Mr. Mahesh Sridharan, Mr. Tunde Sanwo and Angela Godwin Ewulu during the inspection and facility tour.
