Submission

Constrack

Activating the office of the citizen in Constituency Projects tracking in Nigeria

Charles Abani, Lydia Odeh and Jennifer Onyejekwe

Chief of Party, Deputy Chief of Party , Public Awareness and Communications Advisor

cabani@nigeriasace.org

West Africa and Haiti

Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement Project

Democracy and Governance

The SACE Project is supporting Order Paper NG, a Nigeria organization, to develop the Constrack App that will enable Nigerian citizens track the execution (or not) of ‘constituent projects’ by government, especially the legislative arm of government.

For years, the leadership in Nigeria was controlled by the Military who ruled the country through decrees rather than through an established legislative structure as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution. But fortunately, in 1999 Nigeria returned to a democratic form of governance headed, this time, by civilians. With this change in governance structure, the National and State Assemblies were reactivated.

Due to the very poor state of development in Nigerian communities at the time, the National assembly demanded and received the constituency funds to enable the representatives address the immediate development needs of the people within their individual constituents.

However, over the years, the issue of Constituency Projects in Nigeria became bedevilled by a culture of corruption, lack of transparency and accountability. The popular belief is that Constituency Projects are a clever channel for funnelling public funds into the pockets of members of the National and State Assemblies, willing collaborators in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of Government as well as conniving contractors who act as fronts for the political interests pulling the strings behind the scenes. on the other hand, the citizens that are meant to benefit from the Constituency Projects are left economically disempowered, socially disoriented and politically disenfranchised.

In recent times, the National Assembly appropriates a princely 100 billion naira in the annual federal budget that is allocated to Senators and Members of the House of Representatives for the implementation of Constituency Projects across Nigeria. Houses of Assemblies in the 36 States have also come to adopt a similar practice of allocating resources for Constituency Projects. The reality however is that these billions of naira appropriated and supposedly expended on Constituency Projects have either not adequately reflected or sufficiently impacted on the citizens and their living conditions in a manner commensurate with the staggering amounts of money involved. This is evident in the deficit of infrastructure and social amenities across the 774 Local Government Areas of Nigeria. This has created and sustained a raging controversy over the desirability or otherwise of sustaining Constituency Projects. The challenges with Constituency Projects are further exacerbated by the absence of legislations to back the operation of the scheme.

In another breadth, the vicious circle of corruption in the Constituency Projects scheme is necessarily a reflection of the questionable opacity surrounding the finance and budget of the legislature which gave rise among others to the call for an Open National Assembly (#OpenNass).

There is no web-based platform in Nigeria that monitors Constituency Projects considering this is a key conduit for fiscal rascality by Legislators.

By activating the office of the citizen in Constituency Projects tracking it will set-off a citizens-driven template of inclusiveness, transparency and accountability in the Constituency Projects scheme.

It is a fact-checking mechanism woven around the Freedom of Information Act to get relevant agencies and departments of government to help in the monitoring and verification process by citizens themselves.

With the ConsTrack project, citizens are able to interrogate and productively engage their representatives in the Senate, House of Representatives and State Houses of Assembly across the country.This core objective of the project will necessarily feed into the practice of good governance and the deepening of democratic values in Nigeria.

The project intends to activate the office of the citizen in Constituency Project tracking using an innovative tracking web based platform called ConsTrack.

ConsTrack enables citizens to interrogate and productively engage their representatives in the Senate, House of Representatives and State Houses of Assembly across the country on Constituency Projects. Issues as basic as how a constituency project is decided upon in the first place; who is awarded the job; how is the bidding and procurement process carried out; how satisfactorily are the projects implemented; and consequently certified for payment; as well as what are the reporting channels for all of these are some of the nagging questions that should constitute the web of engagement between citizens, legislators, MDAs and other interested parties like media and civil society in the Constituency Projects scheme.

Using ConsTrack as a monitoring and tracking tool will ensure that such above identified engagement on a sustained basis will ultimately spur some reforms in the operationalization of the scheme to allow for the much needed inclusiveness, transparency and accountability on one hand as well as appropriate legislative instruments and policy guidelines on the other hand.

ConsTrack aims to provide an innovative and cross-sectoral platform for the tracking, reporting, and fact-checking of Constituency Projects specifically captured in the 2016 budgets of the Federal Government and those of the identified pilot states on one hand; as well as setting off a nationwide campaign and culture for a holistic, systematic and sustained tracking of Constituency Projects across board generally.

Having a platform for citizens to track, report and fact-check claims of Constituency Projects execution by legislators will necessarily bring fresh ventilation to the quest for an open, more transparent and accountable Parliament in all ramifications.

The major cost lies in designing the platform and sensitization actions for citizens in both rural and urban areas on the use and usefulness of the platform. Its schematics are easy to use as citizens can upload evidence- based information directly to the platform using mobile phones.

This is a pilot project which will run from July 2017 to June 2018.

It will be piloted in 3 states in Nigeria.

Constrack has a lot of potential outcomes.

It will add value to an ongoing civil society driven nationwide campaign of #OpenNass which is a demand for transparency and accountability in the budget and financial transactions of the National Assembly. The successful implementation of ConsTrack will strengthen the advocacy for #OpenNass as Constituency Projects have also come to be identified as one of the key points of opacity, lack of transparency in the finance and budget of the legislative institution.

It will also aid in the call for the amendment or revalidation of existing legislations on Constituency Projects (Lagos State is the only state with a constituency law out of the 36 states in Nigeria) and enactment of enabling laws in other parts of Nigeria; and at the level of the Executive, policy formulation/reforms and enforcement measures to enhance transparency and accountability in the conception and execution of Constituency Projects.

A sustained tracking of Constituency Projects through the Mobile App; and availability of database of verified Constituency Projects in the pilot states which will go a long way to validate or repudiate the argument for continuance of the scheme. It will promote more transparency and less corruption in the selection and execution of constituency projects in target locations in a manner that enhances inclusiveness; and elevates the App as a reference tool for both constituents and legislators.

Most importantly, an engaged citizenry is an empowered citizenry. Having an empowered citizenry and community-level monitors/trackers that are knowledgeable on engaging representatives on standard measurement criteria for Constituency Projects will promote accountability, transparency and good governance generally.

This technology can definitely be used across future, and even current Chemonics projects, particularly projects that promote project monitoring for accountability and transparency as well as citizen’s participation, in governance.

ConsTrack Project Methodology.pdf