The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has expressed dismay over what it described as poor funding of projects and diversion of funds by public officeholders in Kano.
ICPC’s Commissioner in Kano and Jigawa State, Ibrahim Garba Kagara disclosed this Town Hall meeting organised by a Civil Society Organization, Resource Centre for Human Rights & Civic Education (CHRICED) in Kano North Senatorial District.
The ICPC’s Commissioner laments over increasing substandard roads in the State, stressing that constituents must document their plights to the commission for prompt action.
“We still have structures built during the tenure of Nigeria's first democratic president, late Shehu Shagari in this country, but if you build a school today it may collapse in a year,” he said.
“Insecurity is everywhere, with bad roads. I just want to urge you to document your plight, we will track the genuine ones.”
On 9 May, CHRICED launched a bold anti-corruption campaign tagged “to track some abandoned projects in Kano State.”
The project was a continuation of another project tagged: Promotion of Community Driven Anti-Corruption Initiatives in Kano it launched in January 2021, to address the lack of accountability in the execution of constituency projects.
According to CHRICED, the project also addresses low citizen morale, weak community organizing capacity, bureaucratic structures, and general apathy fueling corruption in delivering key rural infrastructure to the grassroots through these projects.
The move, according to CHRICED, was to ensure transparency and accountability. It was also to help in holding legislators responsible and accountable for constituency projects in the state.
The Executive Director of CHRICED, Comrade Dr. Ibrahim Zikirullahi disclosed this at a press briefing tolaunch a new phase of CHRICED’s project tagged: Community Driven Anti-Corruption Initiative, in Kano State.
In 2021, CHRICED, in collaboration with ICPC, conducted a physical tracking exercise to investigate several constituency projects in the state.
CHRICED’s independent analysis of contract awards documents indicates that a staggering amount ranging from N618,00.00 to N700,000.00 is spent on procuring and installing a single unit of solar-powered streetlight.
Similarly, the federal government allocated N14,000,000 to construct a single block of two classrooms.
CHRICED's Senior Programme Officer, Omoniyi Adewoye, stressed that the inflated expenditures exemplify the pervasive “corruption, misappropriation and mismanagement within the constituency projects value chain in Nigeria.”
Apart from substandard and abandoned projects, constituency projects are being carried out without the knowledge of the constituent.
The chairman of Bichi Local Government Area, Alhaji Ahmed Lado revealed that most of the substandard projects built in Bichi were without the knowledge of the local government, hence saying, “A borehole is built in a community that needs school”.
Lado, represented by the Vice Chairman of the LGA, Mallam Habibu Musa, however, stressed that lawmakers shun politics and take the constituent as one for the sake of the development of the state.
On his part, the Deputy Superintendent of the Economy and Financial Commission (EFCC) in Kano, Noel Nzumi argued that “lawmakers connive with officials at the supervising ministries to award contracts to non-existent contractors.”
Nzumi, however, said constituents must document their plights to halt the corruption in project execution.
