ICPC urges communities to report wrongdoings in executing constituency projects
Projects
By Muhammad Nasir Bello
Sokoto March 17, 2020 (NAN) The Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has urged communities to report wrongdoings on any constituency projects undertaken by lawmakers in their areas.
The ICPC Chairman,Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, made the call during a town hall meeting on “My Constituency, My Project, ” organised by ICPC in collaboration with the National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Sokoto on Tuesday.
Represented by the ICPC Commissioner in charge of Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara States, Mr Musa Alkali, Owasanoye said that the constituency projects were not gifts or donations by their elected representatives.
“They belong to you as fruits of national resources and government responsibility to the people.
“Your representatives in the legislature who select constituency projects do so because they are closer to you, and it is expected that they understand your needs better.
“You should therefore work with them to make sure that projects chosen for you actually reflect your needs,” he said.
The ICPC Chairman added that the Communities needed to be fully involved and requested the audience of the representatives to put their needs across to them.
He added that the community must also protect the projects from destruction by vandals and ensure that facilities were used responsibly.
The Director-General of NOA, Dr Garba Abari, said that the main concern of NOA was how the vehicle of development in the 20th year of uninterrupted democracy could be made to deliver the desired gains to the people.
Represented by the state Director NOA, Abubakar Danchadi, Abari said that was the basis for the new partnership between the agency and ICPC.
“However, since the introduction of the concept of constituency projects a number of safeguard have been evolved to avoid abuse of the process.”
He added that the new template advocated under the new partnership between NOA and ICPC was for the people to own the entire process, from conception to execution.
Earlier, the representative of Civil Society Organisations, Malam Nura Attajiri, commended ICPC and NOA for the gesture and called on elected representatives to always involve their communities in governance.
He also called on the electorate to respect their votes by itemising their development needs to contestants for political offices before voting them, rather than collecting money to vote. (NAN)
BMN/OSA/AMY
Edited by Shittu Obassa and Abdullahi Yusuf