Worried by the increasing pervasiveness of corruption in the public sector, particularly the abuses that have characterised capital budget implementation over the years, civil society organisations have advocated improved Nigerians' involvement in the budgetary processes and capital project execution as a strategic option of curbing perceived abuses and ensuring better value for money for capital disbursements on a yearly basis.
Indeed, most of the leaders of the CSOs in the country who have never hidden their disdain over the way taxpayers' money is being squandered projects that hardly impact on the socio-economic welfare of the people, are also rallying stakeholders' support at all levels with a view to stopping political leaders and their civil service collaborators from stealing or siphoning such funds to execute personal projects in Dubai, United Kingdom, United States, South Africa and other countries.
For instance, the abuses of capital budgets, as they observed, are getting worse at a time when the country's per capital remains one of the lowest globally and the vice of poverty is exerting its suffocating grip on millions of the ordinary Nigerians. This is just as new multi-billion housing skyscrapers in private estates and choice sites are dotting the landscapes of Abuja, Port Harcourt, Lagos and other cities with reckless abandon even as the majority of the people go without food on daily basis.
Most of the civil society chieftains who in recent times have assumed the role of the conscience of the nation, expressed serious concern on the increasingly worrisome overbloated capital project costs in the country and proposed one panacea: that Nigerians should become more involved in budgetary processes and capital project implementation in order to make political leaders more accountable on how taxpayers' money is being utilised.
Using the recently re-awarded Lagos- Ibadan and East-west expressways as reference point of analysis, some of the public policy analysts and civil society leaders have argued that based on global cost standards on such projects, the infrastructure projects were not only inflated but still showed that pre-contract award processes may not have been strengthened enough to reduce corrupt practices in capital project implementation.
Speaking with Sunday Mirror on the project cost of the Lagos- Ibadan expressway and the implications for efficiency of capital budgets in the country, the Executive Director of Community Action for Popular Participation, Mrs. Kyauta Giwa, believed that apart from the fact that the contract appeared over-bloated, there were other pressing areas the money could be have been deployed that would reduce poverty and enhance the socioeconomic well-being of ordinary Nigerians.
She explained: "My comment on the Lagos Ibadan Expressway road work is that the amount involved is quite enormous and I'm wondering whether there's value for money for the road. A 120km road costing over about 160billion naira, its alarming and for a country like Nigeria what we emphasise more is the amount of money on contract but nobody sits down to really look at it in terms of value for money.
"If you put that kind of money on a road, for how long will it last Nigerians? I'm really worried if we continue to put in so much amount of money into road construction, 160 billion for just 120 kilometres of road network, I think they should tell Nigerians what and what the construction entails, I think they should come out in black and white to tell people what is involved in details.
"I'm speaking from a lame man point of view, let's not use technical jargons and confuse Nigerians, let us speak the truth and say to buy this, this is the cost, this is the quantity required and as they are putting out these figures, a lot of valuers are also valuing to really see whether this is what is needed, at the end of the day let Nigerians react to it. I think it is high time Nigerians began to demand accountability over the way our funds are spent.
To David Alu, Director of Project Agape, another civil society entity, the reconstruction of the Lagos Ibadan expressway in the first place is a welcome development because that is the busiest road in Nigeria and it will, in his opinion, actually alleviate the plight of commuters especially with the metropolitan nature of Lagos.
However, he was concerned about the costing and timing of the project both of which are crucial to determining whether or not the contract is actually awarded to add value to the economy generally.
Alu said: "As somebody who has a very fair knowledge of project management, there are three or four constraints to project management, one is the duration or what we call the schedule, the second is actually the cost or the budget, the third is the quality. So, in terms of what they have done, N167 billion for a road of about 120 kilometres looks a bit outrageous, taking into cognisance also the fact that the duration is 48months which is four years.
"We have seen situations in Nigeria where contracts are awarded today and the mobilisation is done, maybe 50 per cent is being mobilised, after one or two years, you see the contractor is under performing, you now come and revaluate the road and give it to, at the end of the day this project may go for about N250 billion, I think the government should be more proactive, they should ensure that they change and look at that costing", he advised.
Maintaining a similar position on capital project costs in the country and the perceived corrupt tendencies in the processes, National Convener, United Action for Democracy, Jaye Gaskia, cited the East-West Road and other similar road contracts to prove that there is still much to be done in the effort to win the war against corruption in the public sector and entrench transparency in public procurement process in the country.
According to him, just like other similar projects that are being recycled into the budgetary system, the Lagos – Ibadan expressway project is coming as a re-awarded contract, following the trend of the East-West Road which was first awarded over 20 years ago but is still a recurring issue in the nation's capital budget on yearly basis.
Gaskia said: "The first government that awarded the East -West road contract was the Buhari/Idiagbon regime. It is 30 yrs now and every regime has re-awarded that road and today still remains uncompleted. Look at the Airport Road in Abuja, the same thing. Fixing bad roads as part of the infrastructure rehabilitation agenda is laudable but the problem is because of the intention behind it, they are never completed.
"They are dragged out for a very long time so that they can have time for what they call contract variation so that they can re-assess and say okay costs have increased, inflation has increased and therefore we need more money to complete it. That is the way we should situate the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. It is rooted in the fact that people need money for elections and that is why it is outrageous. "From the things that they have put out as the cost which is about N167 billion for a 128 kilometre road, then we can begin to ask ourselves what is going on here.
That is at about N1.3 billion per kilometre. This is not a road in a swamp, it is simple renovation and it is not about constructing a road through a jungle. It is this same Lagos Ibadan expressway", the UAD boss added.
While describing the contract as totally outrageous in view of the fact that most states also have less than that as their entire budgets annually and the cost is actually the amount of money that the government set out in what we call an intervention fund for small scale agriculture to run entire sectors of the economy, Gaskia believes that committing such a huge sum on a 128 kilometre road with the possibility that substantial chunk of the amount will go into private hands suggests clearly that the project is more of a misplaced priority now.
National Mirror