TheCable

Bolaji Owasanoye, chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), says several constituency projects are rotting away in the country because of bad politics.

Owasanoye said this while responding to questions during an interactive summit in Abuja on Thursday.

According to the ICPC chairman, political differences between project sponsors and benefiting communities sometimes stifle the operationalisation of constituency projects after completion.

“In terms of operationalisation of constituency projects, we think it’s solely government’s. If for instance, an hospital is built as a constituency project, it would not be fair to say it’s the sponsor of the project who should go and run the hospital,” he said.

“That is out of the question. It boils down to our community leaders and local government involvement. We have written, for example, to a state government, where a hospital was built built for a community, furnished with the state-of-the-art facilities but because of politics, the project was not used for almost five years or more.

“We had to bring the concerned government officials to Abuja, telling them they would be arrested if they don’t come. So, our politics is very funny and sometimes it does not look at the victims and the costs.”

He said the event organised in collaboration with the National Orientation Agency (NOA) was geared towards sensitizing the public on the need to ask critical questions.

“In terms of assisting the government and ourselves in not only changing the narrative, but also in getting the right things done, I think we are already on the conversation which is why we are all in this room as stakeholders and partners,” he said.

“That is why we are starting the conversation with the media who inform, set agenda, educate and also entertain the public.

Owasanoye asked people to always prevail on their leaders, through protests and demonstrations, to ensure their needs are always meet.

“There is an injunction that the representatives of the people should know what the people want but if the consultation process is not enough, then they can begin to challenge that. We can all put our voice into it, make noise, cry out until the right thing is done. So, it is the community and the government. Don’t forget these are government project, the legislature is only a channel through which they are done,” he said.

He added that the ICPC would continue its “non-partisan approach” in ensuring projects budgeted for are delivered.