Mr. Onofiok Luke, a lawmaker from Akwa Ibom and Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) have constructed two blocks of classrooms for the sum of N100 million as a constituency project.
Luke, former Speaker of Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly; and now representing the people of Etinan/Nsit Ibom/Nsit Ubium Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, nominated the project as his constituency project in 2020.
The project located at Ikot Obio Iyang in Nsit Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State was supervised by the Universal Basic Education Commission and handled by its department of physical planning.
Fon Apple Integrated Service Limited registered in 2012 served as a contractor for the project.
Tracka, a public accountability organization that visited the project site says two blocks of classrooms have been constructed at Ikot Obio Iyang, while furniture is yet to be supplied.
This is even as the Federal government in 2020 had allocated the sum of N100 million for the project.
However, checks by MAWA FOUNDATION show that the Akwa Ibom Lawmaker and UBEC may have shortchanged the people. Mr. Emmanuel Obong, a civil engineer who said he had built schools in Akwa Ibom, said that amount is enough to build and equip 10 classrooms at N10 million each and that includes labour and consultancy fees.
Worse still, the Akwa Ibom lawmaker and UBEC say a block of two classrooms costs N100 million.
Constituency projects are nominated by the lawmakers for the needs of their constituents and recommend same to the executive during budgeting; this will help to improve the living condition of the people in their constituents through building local infrastructures.
However, Nigerian experience has shown that Lawmakers do not execute constituency projects as they appear in the national budget, and getting them to account for monies approved for such intervention is always difficult.
And, often, community residents are not aware such monies have been given to their representatives, and that makes accountability very difficult.
MAWA Foundation could not immediately reach out to the Akwa Ibom lawmaker and UBEC for a response.