A round table discussion between Civil Society Organisations and officials of the Kaduna State Government on procurement monitoring findings has been held in Kaduna, Northwest Nigeria.
Hosted by the Public and Private Development Centre, PPDC, the discussion was aimed at improving accountability and citizens’ participation in governance supported by CSOs in the following areas.
These include tracking and monitoring projects in education, health and Works using data from Kaduna State procurement portal and other sources of procurement- related information.
The Open Contracting Portal which consists of published Contracting information from various Ministries since it’s deployment, has helped citizens to identify, follow up and monitor the implemented public projects in their different localities.
At the meeting on Thursday, the CSOs who have been in the field for the past few months, shared their findings from monitoring experiences and the status of projects with representatives from the Universal Basic Education Commission ,Bureau of Public Procurement and the Kaduna State Public Procurement Authority.
The round table discussion also provided an opportunity for an interactive session between CSOs and public officials from implementing agencies and anti-corruption agencies .
From the foregoing, procurement monitors from various CSOs presented findings, successes and challenges relating to access to information, implementation reports and reports from community engagement to public officials representing key MDAs responsible for the projects that have been monitored.
So far, a total of 24 projects across the State are being monitored to ensure transpancy and accountability in public expenditure through ope Contracting.
According to some members of the CSOs, some projects were either abandoned by contractors or poorly executed, but with their intervention along with benefitting communities, the shortcomings were overcome.
The public officials who responded to the reports , made commitments to further follow up for improved service delivery for the people of the State.
