By Kolawole Kayode
In an effort to build and sustain accountability in public procurement, a non-governmental organization, under the aegis of accountability Nigeria Lab. on Friday concluded a 2-day workshop program organised for relevant Stakeholders in Ekiti state.
The Program focused on how to ensure public activeness on Government procurement activities in the country.
The two-day sensitization workshop program with the theme “Improving accountability and transparency in public procurement” came up at Delight Hotel Ado-Ekiti, the state capital.
They admonished citizens to make use of the Freedom of information act(FOIA) and Open contracting law to look into government projects and report any foul play of anyone involved in the project execution through appropriate channels in order to sustain national development
it was stated that all government activities involved procurement — either physical goods or services– hence, the need for citizens to monitor from the stage of planning to award of contract and implementation as this will ensure appropriate things are done from all players involved
Speaking, the Country Director for the accountability lab in Nigeria Odeh Friday said “We work to make governance work for people everywhere. So our intention for this program basically is to see how we can focus on procurement basically on service delivery and how projects being implemented by the government serve the people, first of all, is to see that citizens at their community level are involved in building up the project, basically making decisions as they affect the project.
“Secondly, data is accessible for everybody to monitor projects, to ensure that it is well implemented. Whatever feedback we get, we ensure that the monitoring process will give feedback to the government.
“So we’re trying to create a system where we can bring civil society, the government’s private sector, and the media into one room so they can all share the same idea.
“If there’s a problem with the project being implemented, the role is to give feedback to the government so they can implement. So this monitoring is what we’re trying to do.
“Lastly to ensure that we support the procurement agency to publish most of this data. Without, you and I would not know which project, how much has been spent for that but with publication we ensure everybody has access to information of government data”
On what to expect from the participants he said “We expect people in this room to pick up this action and this engagement to monitor projects effectively. because we are looking at a situation where open contracting will be at the forefront of the phase of what we do.
“So open contracting process should be open to you, to the private sector, to the media, and civil society. The Bureau of Public Procurement should ensure that the systems are open and information accessible to the people”.