ICPC Accuses Foreign Affairs, Justice Ministries’ N5.6bn Budgeted for ‘Constituency Projects’
POLITICS DIGEST – The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) has accused the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice of “inserting” a whopping N5.6 billion constituency projects in the 2019 budget.
While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had N2.9 billion, the Ministry of Justice was said to have earmarked N2.7 billion for the zonal intervention projects.
The chairman of the ICPC, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, who made the disclosure in Abuja, queried the respective allocations, wondering what business the two ministries had with constituency projects.
“What is constituency project doing in Foreign Affairs? We will ask questions with this kind of allocation,” Owasanoye said.
Owasanoye’s position was contained in a statement issued yesterday by the spokesperson for the ICPC, Mrs. Rasheedat Okoduwa.
The ICPC Chairman, who spoke at a media roundtable to promote the ‘My Constituency, My Project’ initiative of the commission, revealed that a breakdown of the 2019 allocation for zonal interventional projects shows that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) would spend N2.9 billion on constituency projects.
Owasanoye added that the allocation of N2.7 billion to the Ministry of Justice in the same budget brings to the fore, some of the anomalies surrounding the implementation of constituency projects across the country.
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He was concerned that constituency projects, which principally were projects and empowerment programmes designed to bring development to rural communities within the country, had been included in the budgets of MFA and other non-relevant ministries and agencies.
The ICPC boss further revealed that only about 60 per cent of constituency projects have been completed with a lot of them executed in shoddy ways due to poor technical designs, impositions and other sundry irregularities.
He stressed that the commission would not give up on tracking of constituency projects as long as government kept funding them and, therefore, called on local communities to own the projects for themselves.
Meanwhile, the ICPC’s boss has called for the handover of zonal intervention projects (ZIPs) to local government authorities upon completion.
This, he noted, is with a view to effectively maintaining and sustaining same.
He said: “If somebody had nominated a project and succeeded in getting the project to the community, it is not the duty of the person to maintain it. Communities need to understand that it was public funds that were used.
“They need to take ownership. We recommend that the project needs to be handed over to the local government for the community to take over.”
Speaking at the round table, Director General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Dr. Garba Abari, called for citizens’ participation in constituency projects.
Abari noted that the active involvement of the communities in planning and execution of constituency projects would remove the issues of corruption and abuse.
According to him, ownership of constituency projects by the citizens would ensure that contractors do not use substandard materials for the projects as well as ensuring that completed projects were not vandalized when handed over.
