TheCable

President Muhammadu Buhari has launched a portal for citizens to monitor projects executed by the government.

Buhari unveiled the portal, tagged ‘Eyemark’, on Wednesday at the presidential villa, Abuja before the commencement of the federal executive council (FEC) meeting.

The portal can be accessed via eyemark.ng while it also has a mobile application.

Buhari said the federal government can no longer depend on its monitoring and evaluation teams to oversee the vast number of infrastructure projects spread across the country.

He said the Eyemark portal will promote the participation of citizens in governance.

The president said “the status of projects, total amount appropriated and dispensed so far are now available in the public space”.

Buhari blamed poor implementation of infrastructure projects across the country on corruption.

He urged ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to cooperate with the ministry of finance, budget and national planning to make available the required information to be captured on the platform.

In his remarks, Clem Agba, minister of state for budget and national planning, said the platform will empower citizens and civil society organisations (CSOs) to monitor capital projects to promote accountability.

Agba said the platform will make use of a sizable network of citizens who will keep an eye on initiatives in their communities.

“If a user is in Kaduna, we can determine the authenticity of the reviews. And we know if the image was uploaded from the location the user claimed it was sent from,” Agba said.

He added that the Eyemark website and its accompanying mobile application were developed by young Nigerians with inputs from stakeholders and industry experts.