According to data gotten from budeshi on Universal Basic Education Commision (UBEC) budget, it indicates that the Nigerian Government spent over N79 billion in 2016 on the construction of 253 schools, provision of school supplies for 293 schools, and the rehabilitation of 88 schools.
Every year huge sums of money are being allocated to the education sector to improve the standard of basic education. This is why it has become pertinent that these projects are tracked and monitored to ensure value for money is achieved.
The huge amount of monies being allocated each year and the lack of set disclosure practices makes it difficult for corruption and fraud to occur. According to Open Contracting Partnership57% of foreign bribery cases prosecuted under the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention involved bribes to obtain public contracts signifying that public procurement is the bane of most corruption cases in the public sector.
Last year, during the BudeshiWaka tour, we found out that some basic education projects were incomplete or abandoned by contractors which have made learning environments uncomfortable for students. The contract details we shared during #BudeshiWaka for projects came as a shock to community stakeholders. Prior to the tour, none of the headmasters, school officers or community stakeholders had details of the contracts being executed in their schools.
Over the years the Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) has been advocating for Open Contracting (OC) and the adoption of the Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS) in Nigeria. The OCDS enables the Government to link budget and procurement data to public service delivery. Using the OCDS in ways demonstrated by the Budeshiplatform will give the Nigerian government tools to innovatively open and share their procurement data using visuals and geotagging systems. As the OCDS has mapped all stages in the contracting process from conception to project delivery, its adoption will also support both government and civic participation especially within the procurement process and within other forms of government contracting process.
In a recent publication by The Nation Newspapers, Edo state has committed torebuild 230 public schools. Though this is a commendable effort, there is a high need to empower the school heads and community stakeholders with this information for better monitoring of project implementation and in turn improved service delivery.
Progress
Though the Universal Basic Education Commision (UBEC) has adopted the OCDS and is making tremendous efforts in ensuring that procurement process in the basic education sector is as open as possible, it is also very important that their state counterparts, the State Universal Basic Education Boards (SUBEBs) also adopt the OCDS. This will promote as well as ensure that transparency in the basic education sector is achieved at the nationwide level.
In our continuous need for transparency and accountability in the basic education sector, PPDC with the support of MacArthur Foundation has continued to advocate for the adoption of the OCDS in state basic education, kicking off with Lagos and Kaduna as pilot states. Based on the various efforts towards public finance transparency, Kaduna State continues to add more feathers to their cap including their efforts towards making their state contracting portal, OCDS compliant.
Expectations
As Nigeria is rapidly making tremendous effort in becoming more transparent and accountable, it is expected to see more states and government agencies show interest and take the necessary steps towards adopting the OCDS. It is expected that the adoption of the OCDS will not only reduce corruption to a bare minimum but also increase service delivery in the basic education sector as well as increase in value for money and accessibility.
We sincerely thank all our partners especially the MacArthur Foundation for their unrelenting support to promote transparency and accountability using the OCDS in Nigeria’s basic education sector.
