Some stakeholders in Kaduna have applauded the efforts of an NGO, Connected Development (CODE), on deepening citizens’ engagement in tracking legislators’ constituency projects.
The stakeholders gave their commendations on Tuesday in Kaduna at a meeting tagged, “Deepening Citizens Interests in Government Spending and Addressing Accompanying Corrupt Practices” (DeSPAAC) stakeholders meetings.
Sadiq Ibrahim, Chairman, Ikara Local Government Council, said that CODE was trying its best in monitoring and tracking projects executed by the people’s representatives in the state and the National Assembly.
According to the council boss, CODE has impacted much in the area by pushing with their findings towards addressing hitches and substandard projects in schools and other government infrastructure.
Also speaking, Shu’aibu Jaja, the Chairman of Kudan Local Government, said they had always wished to have a civil society organisation or NGO that would ensure that elective leaders kept up to their mandate of guaranteeing accountability and transparency in constituency projects
.
“We are happy that the activities of CODE is creating a lot of awareness and sensitisation of the public to understand the true operations of government and enhancing participation by the public to ensure accountability and operation of government,” he said.
Nazir Sanusi, the Vice Chairman of Kaduna North Local Government, said that the CODE DeSPAAC project had brought them a lot of development and achievements.
“What CODE is doing is a kind of motivation to the government; before now, citizens were not very enlightened on the importance of taking ownership of government projects in their communities.
“The engagement of CODE has enlightened them on the needful from inception of projects and of course making the government have confidence in channeling its resources without fear of thinking of any wastage or un-usefulness by the citizens,” Sanusi said.
Hadiza Umar, the citizens Co-chairperson of Open Government Partnership, OGP in Kaduna, said what CODE was doing was in line with what any society desired to achieve development.
She said that the Kaduna State Government had since keyed into the OGP, nothing that there would not be need for development if the citizens would not own it.
“CODE is actually helping to push the government in the right direction and to sensitise people on the need for taking ownership of projects in their communities.
“We must make sure that projects are informed by the people’s needs and let them know what it is about, its cost and what they expect to see,” she said.
On his part, Mr Buhari Bello, a representative of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC, described CODE as a partner as its aims and objectives were in line with those of the commission.
He urged relevant civil society organisations, NGOs and the citizens to be at the helm of exposing corrupt practices and take ownership of projects in their communities.
Earlier, CODE’s Director of Programmes, Lucy Abagi, said they organisation had enjoyed its partnership with the Kaduna state government on access to information and relating its findings to them.
She noted that CODE had for over nine years, through its ‘Follow-the-Money’ Initiative tracked and monitored public spending in rural communiaes across Nigeria and other countries in Africa.
“As of December 2020, CODE had reached over 3,300.000 people across 231 communities, in Nigeria’s 36 states and Abuja.
“By fostering social accountability, the organisation has advocated for open government, improved service delivery in the execution of development projects, exposed and mitigated corruption, and tackled extreme poverty in rural communities.
Abagi noted that in November 2020, CODE secured a grant from the MacArthur Foundaton, for the DeSPAAC project in Kaduna State.
“The three-year project involves mobilizing community governance structures across the aforementioned communities through the Community Monitoring Teams (CMTs) vehicle.
“It also involves empowering them to provide effective public oversight on government spending in their communines, for effective service delivery on constituency projects in the education, health, and WASH sectors.
“Year One of the project focused on tracking 23 constituency zonal Intervention Projects (ZIP) from the list of 2020 and 2021 in 30 communities across the three senatorial zones of Kaduna State worth N1.167 billion.
“In all, 12 projects were tracked from the 2020 Zonal Intervention Projects Budget document and 11 projects were tracked from the 2020 Budget document,” she said.
She lauded the Kaduna State Government on OGP, saying it was the most transparent in Nigeria from which they enjoyed access to information. (NAN)
