Mr. Orji Uzo Kalu, the Abia State Senator and a former Governor, and, the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) have renovated two primary school blocks for N20 million as a constituency project.
Mr. Kanu last year, using the National Directorate of Employment, nominated the rehabilitation of two primary school blocks in Ohafia Local Government Area of Abia North Senatorial District in Abia State as his constituency project.
The federal government had since last year, allocated the funds for the project.
The project, supervised by the National Directorate of Employment was awarded to Cavernous County Limited who carried out the renovation work.
Tracka, a public accountability organization that visited the project site for an inspection said the renovation was poorly done while the classrooms are locked and not put into use.
Worse still, Mr. Francis Oboh a civil engineer and a quantity surveyor while speaking to MAWA FOUNDATION said that amount is too huge for a two-classroom block renovation.
Oboh told MAWA that building two classroom blocks averages N5 million while pointing out that with N20 million, one can build up to four classrooms and that includes payments for consultancies, labour, and furnishing.
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 Kalu and NDE for a response.