BUDESHI WAKA: THE ILLS OF CLOSED CONTRACTS
As a student of a Technical College, Ikenna beamed with excitement as the truckload of laboratory equipments drove into his school. For a long time, students of Government Technical College (GTC), Ubahuekwuem had been going to neighbouring schools to carry out their science experiments due to lack of equipments and a laboratory in their own school. But all that was about to change, or so they thought…
In 2015, a N25 million naira contract was awarded to Pyramid Energy to construct a Laboratory for the students of GTC. However, when UBEC officials came with the laboratory equipments in February 2017, the project was yet to be completed. The officials had no option than to take it back with them and come back when the laboratory has been fully completed.
This dashed the hopes of Ikenna and his school mates who had hoped that the technical college which is focused on practical work, would finally have the proper equipments to enable the students learn as they should.
This story was one of the many stories shared as the Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) embarked on their Community engagement tour tagged #BudeshiWaka. #BudeshiWaka was an outcome of previous visits carried out by procurement monitors in February 2017 and August 2016 where they used data from their Open Contracting Data Standards portal, Budeshi, to trace basic education projects and primary health care projects respectively to verify their performance across states.
The aim of #Budeshi Waka was to engage the community on the impact of the 2015 UBEC Intervention projects and the 2014 Healthcare projects implemented in their communities. This is with a view to understand how quality basic education and health care delivery can be improved and sustained. In #BudeshiWaka Series 1, we visited Edo, Delta and Anambra States.
Our Observations
No clear communication on the contract information: From all interactions with the Headmasters (HMs)of the schools and the community members, they receive no information on the contract award. According to them, the contractor just shows up with a letter of award. This letter usually has no information on the amount or specifications of the contract. This makes it difficult for the HMs or community to properly monitor the completion of projects as they have no idea what to look out for. For example, in Ikeken Primary School, Edo State, a contract was awarded to P & V Corp Ltd to supply 125 classroom desks, however the HM confirmed that he had received only 86 desks from the contractor. And because he had no idea of the contract information, he assumed the contractor had finished his work. He was only aware of the contract information when our monitor visited in February 2017.
Lack of access to contracting information by the community can lead to fraud: We also saw cases where a contract has been awarded and marked complete, however the project is non-existent. Burutu is a large local government in Delta State with about 73 communities. However, Burutu has only 2 PHCs serving the 73 communities. Out of these two, only one is active and has been in existence since 2001/2002. According to the procurement records provided to us by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), in 2014, a contract was awarded to Barking Consult to construct a Primary Health Care Centre in the community for the sum of N21.9 million. As at the time of the town hall meeting with members of the Burutu LGA, that PHC was not in existence.
No proper check on contractors against the use of sub-standard goods: Another common complaint of the schools in attendance during the #BudeshiWaka tour was the use of substandard goods to carry out projects. The HMs complained of most of the projects sen as completed by our procurement monitors. For example, the Headmaster of Ekenya Primary School, Oko Ogbele, complained about the present condition of the N20 million project contracted to Tower Ark Ltd, to renovate the school in 2015.
According to him, 2 months ago, the roof of one of the classrooms caved in, luckily, there was no student in the classroom at the time. After the contract was completed, there was no check by UBEC to ensure that the project has been duly completed and the contractor was paid for endangering the lives of students.
The need to involve citizens in contract processes can not be overemphasized. When citizens are a part of a system, they go the extra mile to ensure it works. This applies to involving citizens in the contract processes. If the community members and the head masters are given the power to monitor contracts and provide feedback, it will go a long way in cutting back on contracting fraud and ensure that projects are implemented properly and of quality standard.
Like the saying goes, when two bulls fight, the grass suffers, in this case when contracting information is not open, the communities suffer.
