Implementation of a surveillance and security system in Kenya is urgent owing to a string of terror attacks that have hit the country, says government.

Government is trying to defend a decision to award a controversial surveillance tender to the country’s biggest mobile network Safaricom.

Safaricom initially won the deal, which has been projected to cost the country KSh 45.3 billion.

But the project was later suspended by Kenya’s parliament, pending investigations into whether due procedures were followed in awarding the tender.

And during a session with Kenya’s National Security Committee, government has attempted to defend the awarding of the tender to Safaricom.

Government claims the tender was above board.

“The fact that the matter is urgent, we do not have to wait for another incident to know how urgent this matter is,” the principal secretary in the ministry of interior and coordination of national government, Mutea Iringo, said.

The Public Procurement Oversight Authority (PPOA), which gave the deal the green light previously, was also present at the session to defend its decision.

Jane Njoroge, who is the deputy director at the PPOA, said, “On the copies of the procurement records, which were availed to us, we opine that the procuring entity observed due process in the selection of the company.”

During the heated debate, details emerged that government had advertised for bidding for the system in 2012.

Meanwhile, the opposition Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD) called for the total cancellation of the Safaricom tender by government during its Saba Saba rally in Nairobi on Monday.

The security contract, if given the green light, is planned to enable government to put up 1,800 closed circuit television systems in Nairobi and Mombasa.

The surveillance system, in turn, is expected to help curb insecurity in the country as Somali militant group al Shabaab has targeted these two areas with a series of attacks.

The militant group wants Kenya to withdraw troops from an African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission that is tackling an uprising from al Shabaab in Somalia.