The Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), has called on people at the grassroots to ensure ownership and monitoring of their Constituency Projects.
The Commissioner of ICPC in Benue state, Clement Obaniyi stated this while addressing participants in Makurdi, at a one day CSO/Media sensitization on Anti-Corruption and Behavioural Change.
Mr. Obaniyi who was represented by an officer of the commission, Bako Along, said the call has become necessary because innocent villagers are hoodwinked into believing that their representatives are carrying out the projects from their private pockets.
He said as part of the Commission’s effort to fight Corruption in different areas of life, the ICPC recently began the Constituency Projects Tracking Group exercise.
According to him, in 12 states visited, the exercise revealed a lot of wrong doings concerning how the contracts were carried out resulting in the people not benefitting from the Constituency Projects.
He recalled a case where a certain water project was sited close to the private farm of an Assembly member far from the original beneficiaries saying it was a wrong thing to do.
Obaniyi explained that Constituency Projects are health, education or infrastructure projects recommended by legislators at the federal level or State Houses of Assembly or projects identified by government agencies and recognized as beneficial to the people for government to carry out in their various Constituencies for the benefit of the people they represent.
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“It is important to note that these projects are funded by public money raised from taxes paid by citizens and from other sources of government revenue. These projects are not paid for from the pockets of the sponsors.
He stated that while the projects are recommended by the legislators, “those who recommended ought not to claim ownership of the projects nor should the projects be regarded as favour done to communities by them.
He insisted that such projects should not be sited on privately owned land saying “where that has happened already, ownership of that land must be transferred to the community.”
Also speaking, the Director of Special Duties, Mr. Audu Idoko said corruption is a double edged sword that shuts down any country faster than an enemy.
Mr. Idoko who called for a behavioural change among all stakeholders; public office holders, youths, among others, also advocated that monies meant for the people should be made public before they are disbursed.
The convener and the programme Officer of Center for Social Justice (CSJ), Mr. Victor Emejuiwe said the essence of the workshop is to sensitize the media and the citizen on the dangers of corruption in Nigeria and to instill behavioural change.
“We discovered that a lot of our social indices in the country are on a negative note; we have high level of infrastructural decay, high level of insecurity, high level of youth unemployment and poor health care.
“These are because, most of the public funds expected to be used to intervene in all of these sectors are being embezzled. We believe that the citizens are the people that make up the leaders and when we don’t talk to ourselves as citizens, when we don’t reorientate ourselves on need to have positive attitude, we will continue to provide a fertile ground for breeding of bad leaders and social vices.”
