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Uromi – A Non-Governmental Organization, Public and Private Development Center,(PPDC), has charged citizens of Edo state to get involved in governance, through proper monitoring and evaluation of contracts awarded for projects in their various communities.
The Senior Program Officer, PPDC, Mrs Gift Omoidedia, gave the charge yesterday in a town hall meeting at Uromi, Esan North east Local Government Area of Edo state organised by Project Procurement Monitor.
Mrs Omoidedia said, “what we are trying to do is to get citizens involved in governance, and we do it by procurement monitoring at the federal and in the States levels.
“We requested some information from Universal Basic Education, UBEC, as regards their procurement reports, we went through it and picked out some focal States, and had our procurement monitors visit those States, and with their reports we saw the need to come down and engage the communities to ascertain why projects are abandoned, or how the projects are being used, also it is important to measure the impact of such project”, She said
The Senior Program Officer, PPDC, who noted that, such engagement with communities will be continuous, added, “like the popular saying, ‘Education is the bedrock of any nation, we want every child to be entitled to basic education, and we want to see that is being given”.
On his part, the member representing Esan North-East/Esan South- East, Federal House of Representative, Hon. Sergius Ogun, represented by Mr Felix Udoh at the town hall meeting, commended PPDC for reaching out to communities, noting that, all projects awarded in his constituency by UBEC were found to be executed to specification.
Meanwhile, head teacher in one of the primary school in the area, who pleaded anonymity, appealed to government at all level, to always involve school heads in the monitoring of contracts, due to abandonment of projects in schools across the country.
