Adebayo Adenrele
…as EKSG vows to strengthen procurement processes of capital projects
The Accountability Lab Nigeria, has lamented poor implentation of projects in Education and Health sectors in Ekiti State.
The Country Director of Accountability Labs, Odeh Friday stated this on Thursday in Ado-Ekiti, during stakeholders forum engagement on Open Contracting and Project Accountability in the state.
Accountability Lab funded by UNDP Anti-corruption and innovation project (ACIP) and in partnership with the Ekiti State Government, engaged various stakeholders across Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), among others in the state.
The Stakeholders at the forum meeting posited that many of the projects were in poor conditions because of the usage of inferior material and poor supervision which have made the project to constitute threats to lives of the pupils and patients respectively.
Speaking with Journalists, Odey said it was discovered that many of the projects monitored by the body in Education and Health sectors were either not completed or in a dilapidated state.
Odey added that the purpose of the forum meeting was to link public procurement data to services and enhance transparency, accountability and governance in public projects, by fostering a culture of improved and quality public service delivery.
The Country Director noted that out of the 24 projects monitored across the state by the body, most of the ones implemented by the contractors were of poor quality, poor maintenance culture and have no sustainability plan.
He stressed that the project details and contractor name differs from data provided by the implementing agencies, adding that no assessments were conducted by the state government before awarding the projects.
His words, “The Community, its leaders, the school managements, and nurses in charge of the Primary Health Care Centres had no idea of the project details to monitor its implementation.
“Some projects have no sign post showing details of the project, some of them have been completed for over five years but awaiting commissioning while some were built in inaccessible sites.” He added.
In his response, the Director General, Ekiti Bureau of Public Procurement, James Folorunso hailed the body for generating the feedback mechanism on government-funded projects to ensure transparency and accountability.
While reiterating the commitment of his agency towards achieving the shared prosperity agenda of Governor Biodun Oyebanji, he vowed to use his office to strengthen the implementation aspect of the capital projects in the state to make sure that there is value for the money expended on projects.
His words, “I want to say that Governor Biodun Oyebanji’s administration has the mandate to deliver the dividends of democracy to Ekiti people and we are all aware of the mantra of this administration which is shared prosperity.
“We are going to be improving what we met on ground and from the Bureau of Public Procurement, it’s for us to strengthen the procurement and implementation aspect of the capital project to make sure that there is value for money.
“We will make sure that whatsoever government is committed to, is actually actualised.
“We are going to be following the works of the contractors, we will follow up the MDAs involved in release of fund to make sure that this circle of project implementation is completed.”
