Nigeria’s broken budgetary cycle pose one of the biggest development challenges in the form of poor budget performance. The level at which abandoned projects clutter several states of the federation calls for great concern. Those who suffer a great deal from these unfortunate circumstances are citizens themselves whose monies are taken from public treasury in the guise of budgetary allocations which then end up in private pockets and sometimes laundered abroad.
Education, health and water projects across many states of the federation are either abandoned, unexecuted or poorly completed. In some cases, projects are awarded over several budget years with huge funds released while having little or nothing to show for it. The state actors and their contracting partners seem to have mastered the game of denying citizens right to decent living, quality education and healthcare which are critical drivers of sustainable development.
According to The Nation’s publication of October 22, 2017, “In just eight states in Nigeria, over N150 billion worth of projects have been left to rot away”. “So far, no one seems certain how the country will eventually resolve the burden of abandoned projects in most of the states as some state governments, which described the facilities as ‘white elephant projects,” give reasons why they cannot continue to develop the projects embarked upon by governments before them. This is notwithstanding the fact that most of the projects in question are financed through loans still being serviced or repaid by the current governments while the projects continue to lie fallow”.
Our resolve to break this cycle of impoverishment is what motivated us at PLSI to put in place “Value for Money” project tracking platform – a civic technology tool which allows ACTIVE CITIZENS to track, report and act on these projects especially those in their communities.
SIMPLE WAYS TO DO THIS
- Look out for abandoned, unexecuted or poorly executed projects in your locality
- Familiarize with this project to get basic information such as (project type, award details, project cost, amount paid till date, project status, location and pictures)
- Visit valueformoney.ng
- Register on the platform
- Click “report project” tab to lodge complain
- Our team will then take it up from there to ensure concerned public institution act to correct this.
- Progress updates are shared on target forums created on valueformoney.ng for specific projects.
DON’T JUST COMPLAIN, BE AN ACTIVE CITIZEN, REPORT THESE PROJECTS.