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By Amos Odhe, Yenagoa
The Independent Corrupt Practice and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, has begin tracking of 46 constituency and executive projects in Bayelsa State worth billions of Naira.
This was made known by ICPC’s Assistant Chief Supretendent Afolabi Kolawole on Monday June 17, during a visit to the various project sites to ascertain the viabilities of the projects.
According to Kolawole, the project sites seen and others to be visited cut across various constituencies in all the eight local government areas of the state.
He said the exercise is phase six of the commission’s regular Constituency and Executive Projects Tracking (CEPT) programme, which is currently underway in several states across the country, to ensure that government projects targeted at meeting the needs of the people are executed and not thwarted.
His words: “We have 46 projects to track in Bayelsa spread across all the eight local government areas in Bayelsa worth billions of naira, and such large and huge money if gone to waste you know what it means for our nation at this time.
“Every government project is targeted strategically at meeting the needs of the people. So every government seeks to satisfy and make life comfortable for his people and when you see government doing interventionist projects, zonal projects, is to make life more comfortable for people and to meet strategic needs.
“The objective of this exercise is to verify and ensure monies committed into government projects are actually spent judiciously and for its purpose and at the end of the day the people targeted to enjoy and benefit from it have those projects being put to use.”
Afolabi, who advised contractors to always ensure the right thing is been done for the benefits of the people, said sometimes the commission discovered discrepancies which could lead to prosecution, recoveries and imprisonment.
“Infractions sometimes are discovered and that’s why sometimes there are prosecutions done, recoveries made and even imprisonment, so where government has committed monies for projects and constituency projects and they are not done, ICPC looked in to find out why are this projects not sighted, why are this projects not done, why are the people not benefitting what they are supposed to and were such are done, where there are infractions they are forced to return back to site and work for the money and work for the money so gotten or refund back to the government,” he said.
