THE last Yuletide afforded me an opportunity to touch base in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, where I chanced upon an innovative state government initiative for checking the problem of abandoned projects and promoting the timely as well as proper execution of government contracts.  The initiative is tagged Bureau of Social Services (BOSS).

    In the midst of the daily political hoopla in the country, I had virtually forgotten about this state government agency and my plan to commend it to all levels of government in the country, until a recent newspaper report once again drew my attention to the need for an agency such as BOSS in all the states and local councils.

The federal agency, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), on January 18, was reported to have announced a recent discovery of 19,000 abandoned Federal Government projects valued at N5 trillion in different parts of the country. This is what triggered my decision to leave some of the key issues of the moment to commend the Osun BOSS initiative to the Federal, state and local governments in the country. If the initiative is adopted and replicated at all levels of government, it will improve the quality of government projects and the rate of their completion and delivery to the intended beneficiaries.

The Osun Bureau of Social Services (BOSS) was set up by the state government to monitor the implementation of government programmes and capture their impact on the people.

Strangely enough, it monitors the costs at which the state government awards its contracts and, many times, recommends downward reviews, to which the state government mostly agrees. It also monitors the quality of jobs done by contractors and the stages of implementation of the contracts to ensure that they comply with the terms of the contracts.

The agency, I found out, has been in existence since September 2011. Its official magazine- The Monitor- says it has a responsibility “to supervise, monitor, evaluate and report the performance of all commissioners, special advisers, heads of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of the government”.  Basically, the agency exists to keep public officers, including the state government, on their toes to ensure good public service delivery. It also monitors the implementation of government policies.

The agency, which has Mr. Femi Ifaturoti as its Director-General, has a   department in charge of Project monitoring, Field Operations and Surveillance. Its work covers the monitoring and technical surveillance of all building projects, including roads, bridges, drainages, water supply schemes and rural electrification schemes etc. Its operations cover the appraisal of the conception, design and construction of projects. There are also departments in charge of Digital Archiving and Documentation; Research and Innovation and Information Technology and Evaluation.

The agency works closely with the people as it has eight dedicated phone numbers through which it receives information from ordinary members of the public on the implementation of the government’s projects.

This agency is now working with the World Bank as the State Operations Coordinating Unit for the Youth Empowerment Social Support Operation (YESSO) and is now a Custodian of the register of beneficiaries of all Social Safety Programmes in the state.

Why do I find this bureau exciting? It is largely because it is somehow strange to have a government agency charged with the responsibility of ensuring proper and timely delivery of government projects and also reporting on their effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, impact and sustainability.

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As the head of the Evaluation and IT department of the agency put it, “if you do not measure the results of a policy, you cannot tell whether it is a success or a failure.”

Nigeria and all the states and local governments will do well to borrow a leaf from this initiative which, I am convinced, will help to ensure that projects delivered are of good standard and delivered within the period stipulated in the contracts.

It will also help to ensure that the funds allocated to projects are judiciously used for the intended projects and not diverted to other uses. Proper monitoring of projects will also ensure that the early warning signs that certain projects could fail would be noticed at an early stage and acted on.

If the Federal Government and all other levels of government had instituted bureaus such as BOSS and made them work, the litany of abandoned projects in all parts of the country would have been minimized.

It is, however, never late than ever. Luckily, the Bureau of Public Procurement which was reported to have disclosed the existence of 19,000 Federal Government abandoned projects has decided to be deeply  involved in the monitoring and evaluation of projects to ensure that they are of the quality stipulated in the contracts, and they are delivered within the stipulated time frame.

There is also now a bill to amend the BPP Act to address procurement processes and the issue of abandoned projects, among others.  The agency, henceforth, wants to use a lifecycle approach to projects to ensure that they are monitored from conception to completion.

Let all state governments key into this project monitoring initiative to ensure that the people get good services for the projects paid for by the government. Let there be a drastic reduction in the level of abandoned projects in the country. The nation’s N5 trillion loss to abandoned projects is unacceptable.

Osun has set a good example which can be replicated all over the country. But then, the state government must know that with BOSS, it must itself not be found wanting on the timely delivery of quality projects within its domain. There should not be any abandoned or poorly executed projects in the state.

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