FOI: NGO Demands Accountability From Edo Government over Seventy Five Million (N75,000,000:00) World Bank Loan
By Tijan Bagudu
Some non-government organizations, Policy House International and Tifa CDI Nigeria, have written the Edo State government through their solicitor, Stankovic Law Firm, demanding for project appraisal document, the project implementation manual and the disbursement linked indicators
for the EdoBest Program partly funded by the World Bank Group.
This was contained in a letter addressed to the Chairman, Universal Basic Education Board, Benin City.
Part of the letter read, “Our client is demanding for the breakdown of funds utilization of the $75,000,000:00(Seventy Five Million Dollars) vis a vis different categories of infrastructure and to what extent such infrastructure was done, teacher recruitment and to what the recruitment was done and the numerical strength of teachers recruited; any introduction of ICT.
“So in line with our clients appetite for getting things done rightly, our client is demanding for breakdown of all projects executed so far including the hiring of consultants and technocrats if any…”
As at press time, the state goverment have not officially responded to the letter whose receipt was acknowledged on the 2nd of November, 2023.
You will recall that the Edo state government collected a loan amounting to $75m to execute Edo best program, however edo citizens have been crying wolf that most of the schools remains dilapidated and the issue of lack of teachers remains high.
Policy House Int’l has been working with developmental partners in the last decade to draw attention to out of school children and implementing the incentives based program in west africa.
