A Nigerian company, iStrategic Transparent Solutions Ltd, has signed a working agreement with a major exporter of Russian technology, Russian Software Trade House, for collaborative efforts towards the deployment of technology to fight money laundering, corruption and insecurity.

The companies would develop computer software in the areas of safety, security, cybercrime and other allied services for use by public and private institutions in Nigeria and other West African countries.

This was the highlight of a Memorandum of Understanding signed on behalf of the two companies by the Chief Executive Officer of iStrategic Solutions, Habibu Aliyu, and the President of RSTH, Pavel Maximenko.

The MoU, obtained by The PUNCH in Abuja on Thursday, revealed that the technologies to be developed by the two companies would focus on the “sole purpose of protecting, preventing and deterring the activities of criminals, insurgents and bandits.”

They said the innovative solutions would also help in “the provision of a platform for ease of governance and delivery of government services to the people of Nigeria, the West Africa region and beyond”.

According to the MoU, other areas to be addressed by the solution-based technology infrastructure include detection of corruption, financial crime, money laundering, fraud, illicit financial flows and other financial crimes, digitisation of government services, provision of security equipment, intelligence gathering, provision of central database for policy and training.

Speaking at the signing of the MoU, Maximenko said, “Russia considers it its duty to spread the achievements of the Soviet School of Mathematics and, by extension, Russian IT solutions to countries with which it has historically had and still has friendly relations with.”