To check and monitor government contracts across the country, an information and technology (IT) firm, Upnaija, has unveiled its online platform, where citizens can trace, monitor, and access the level and state of contracts as work progresses.
At the unveiling ceremony in Abuja yesterday, the head of the firm’s technical team, Samuel Chukwunonso, , said “Upnaija.ng” is essential for every Nigerian to access all projects at the federal, state, or local government to ascertain the level of contract implementation.
Chukwunonso said that the idea is to bridge the gap in the non-availability of information to access the level of implementation of contracts awarded at various levels of government to promote transparency and accountability.
According to him, “It is no longer news that Nigerians find it impossible to monitor the level of project implementation. And we have seen people interpret the implementation of projects in different ways. Sometimes, we forget that these are taxpayers ‘ money that needs to be accounted for. Sometimes, such projects are completed on television screens and the pages of newspapers. This platform will afford us the opportunity to monitor the project from inception to completion.”
On the platform’s capacity to monitor the 774 local governments across Nigeria, Chukwunonso said that the organisation uses human capital within the localities to drive its information and update its data for the people to access.
He said, “Awards of contracts are public documents in the public domain. We keep track of such contracts and monitor their level of implementation, and these are uploaded to our websites, which are connected to Google, so that every Nigerian can access the information through their cell phone. So, we serve as a one-stop shop for project monitoring in Nigeria. Even Nigerians in diaspora and foreigners alike can now monitor the level of execution of projects down here.
“Right now, for example, we have uploaded over 10,000 projects which can be accessed through the platform.”
On how the organisation is funded, he said it remains a nonprofit organisation to eliminate the criminalities associated with contract awards and implementation.
