When it comes to issues surrounding the procurement and awarding of contracts in their communities, the Social Development Integrated Centre has urged community leaders and Community Based Organizations in Akwa Ibom State to use the Freedom of Information, FOI Act to make requests of the government and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
These remarks were presented by Isaac Botti, the Programmes Coordinator of Social Action Nigeria, in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, at a one-day workshop titled “Using Freedom of Information to facilitate transparency in public procurement and project implementation.”
When citizens who are supposed to benefit from the community projects start asking questions in the areas of procurement, contract awarding, and budgeting, he said, the agencies involved and the government would start showing some level of transparency.
Botti said that the widespread ignorance of the FOI act’s provisions was to blame for the widespread prevalence of nonexistent projects in the communities included in the budget and the widespread corruption in procurement processes.
Therefore, he advocated for cooperation between the media and community-based organizations to file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, which would increase openness in project funding and delivery.
“We want to see more actions from the community; that is why you see us training them, for them to understand the use of FOI, particularly to facilitate transparency in procurement because the entire corruption profile is built around procurement, contract awarding, and budgeting,” he said. Transparency is possible when the people who will ultimately benefit from the projects are the ones asking the questions.
People should write to the NDDC, the government, or any other organization asking about the contractor for a project that was funded but has yet to be completed in their area. They need to find out how much money is issued and when the project will be finished. and so on, this would be the way to attain openness.
“You will see all these agencies like the NDDC on their toes and coming up clean when the Community people get the information of what they do and make their demands, with the help of the media. The NDDC’s plans for the Niger Delta region are set to become more strategic.
A resource person named Mfon Gabriel who gave a talk titled “Introduction to Freedom of Information Act: A Breakdown of the Act” urged journalists and community leaders to be as clear and concise as possible when submitting FOI requests to avoid being rebuffed.
While he lamented the fact that some institutions refuse to give out information because people do not understand their right to take them to court, he did add that the people or any other information seeker is backed by law to sue any agency that refuses to respond to their FOI request within 14 days concurrently.
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