The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has revealed that only seven of Nigerias 774 Local Government Areas have functional websites where citizens can access information on governance, spending, and service delivery. ICPC Chairman, Musa Aliyu, disclosed this on Friday, August 22, during a Channels Television programme anchored by former presidential spokesman Laolu Akande. He said the lack of digital transparency cuts across all six geo-political zones. Recently, because of the focal decision, we have now initiated a programme we call corruption prevention programme in the local government areas. We are using five thematic areas: One, the issue of open fiscal transparency, open procurements, the issue of corruption control, human resources and citizen engagement, Aliyu said. He explained that the commission expected local governments to develop websites to improve transparency but discovered that only seven are functional nationwide. What we discovered was that there are only seven local governments with functional websites in Nigeria. That is to say we have a lot of problems because we cannot go all over. Thats why we say, okay, why cant we have a website? Publish these things, so that people will know what youre doing, otherwise, it will be difficult for us to know, so that there will be transparency, he added. Aliyu also accused some public officials of diverting resources meant for the public into private use. You will see that a public officer, who is supposed to put a street light for the public to use, will now put it in his house, he said. The ICPC chairman further explained that the commission is tracking constituency projects to ensure delivery to communities. When you look at it, there is this issue of constituency projects that the National Assembly is doing, and ICPC has what we call a constituency project tracking initiative, whereby were following projects that are in critical areas: education, health sector, agriculture or empowerment, to see these things go down to the members of the public, the real downtrodden people, he said. He noted that the initiative had led to recoveries and compelled underperforming contractors to return to sites. We track the budgets, especially the national budget, to see how this money is being used. We also track where there is underperformance, and we force the contractors to go back to site where there are issues of diversion. We try to do that, and that has helped a lot, he said. Aliyu added that the ICPC, in collaboration with the EFCC, will continue to push for the passage of a bill on unexplainable wealth, stressing that transparency at the grassroots level is essential for good governance.
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