Tanzanian ATC System
 

So the world banks condemn the ATC system being sold to Tanzania by the UK for £28m as too expensive and 'useless'. UK MP's suggest that a system can be bought for £3.5m. Where can you get that then, 'cause I'm sure that UK NATS would like to know!!

Well it ain't easy, but you can get a system quite cheaply based on PC technology rather than minicomputers - $2000 vs $20,000 each, there are some quite respectable systems available. These systems are quite capable and for countries with relatively low levels of traffic, do the job very efficiently. Buying a £28million system would seem to be rather OTT, but I don't know enough to comment on that aspect. By the way ATC systems still work when given just a radio, telephone, pen and paper. Albania started that way and earned enough to pay up front for a new system two years later - well done!! People tend to overcomplicate the job, especially when is ain't necessary especially when the £3.5m system probably exceeds the functionality of the NERC system in variety but admittedly not in number crunching power.

The fuss about Tanzania was because the system proposed had primary radar IIRC. Do a search in this forum and you might turn up the original discussion.