From : Femi Oyelola, Kaduna
A civil society group, Connect Development (CODE) has raised alarm over what it described as dozens of poorly executed and abandoned constituency projects scattered across Kaduna.
The program Associate of CODE Kingsley Agu made this assertion yesterday, during a Deepening Citizens interest Government Spending and Addressing the Accompanying Corrupt Practices ( DeSPAAC) meeting held, in Kaduna.
According to him, 28% of the projects tracked in 2020 are abandoned while 22% are ongoing.
He added that under 50% of Constituency projects in the state are completed despite that over N3.5B was budgeted for Constituency projects in 2020 and over N2.85B was budgeted for the same in 2021 which is a lot of money.
Agu explained that CODE in collaboration with Community Monitoring Team( CMT) tracked Projects worth N1.2B across 23 projects in 18 Communities in 7 Local Government Areas of the State.
He described the report of poorly and shoddily executed projects as heart-rending and unacceptable.
He said based on the intervention of the Community Monitoring Team Some contractors involved in the shoddy project execution have been ordered to return to the site.
“Findings in the course of the tracking exercise also indicated that the quality of many of the projects implemented was poor and substandard when compared with the quantum of funds expended by the government to execute the projects.
“DeSPAAC analysis of the bill of quantities for some of the projects tracked revealed that the contactors used inferior materials for construction and project execution, while some of those handling supplies and procurement contracts supplied inferior, cheap, and substandard brands and models of the items said to have been supplied, despite quoting high and sometimes outrageous prices in their bidding documents.
“ For instance, many of the blocks of classrooms said to be constructed in the year 2020 are already looking dilapidated as of 2021 when the tracking exercise took place.
“ The plastering, roofing, and painting of many of the classroom blocks were done shoddily, and in some cases, electrical wiring and fittings were not even done at all, while they were all quoted in the bills of quantity accompanying the contract award.,” he said.
In his remarks, the CEO and Founder of CODE Hamza Lawal, said the disturbing realities from the projects tracked, make it imperative for citizens to consistently beam the searchlight on constituency projects, from the planning to the phase of execution.
According to him, citizens, the media, CSOs, community-based organizations, and importantly, the teeth actors need to stay the course and ensure that some measure of sanity is restored to the constituency project implementation process, not only in Kaduna State but all over Nigeria
Lawal lauded the efforts of the Media and the Partner MacArthur, Foundation for always being there for the citizens.
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