PPDC Advocates Construction, Rehabilitation of PHCs in Rural Communities

Ayodeji Ake

The Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) has shown concern for communities who have been denied access to healthcare services and education as they advocate for monitoring and evaluation of contracts by the government to build Primary Health Care facilities and schools in rural communities.

A private screening in Lagos on the recently released BudeshiWaka documentary which is based on the community engagement tour embarked on by PPDC to verify the performance of health and education projects in Delta, Anambra, Kano, Edo and Benue states, revealed that a number of the communities do not have health facilities and schools at a ratio of 10 communities to one PHC.

In her opening remark, Communication Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, PPDC, Ugochi Ekwueme stated that mission of the BudeshiWaka is to investigate on the contracts to build healthcare facilities and schools and ensuring they are beneficial to the citizens in the rural areas.

“The idea behind BudeshiWaka came from the need to determine the extent to which awarded contracts have been beneficial to the communities and also to sensitise the community members on their role as citizens in ensuring value for money is attained with every contract that has been awarded.

“The documentary shows how these projects have affected the lives of citizens living in rural area, due to dilapidated healthcare facilities and schools. The information used to embark on the verification exercise was gotten from our open contracting platform. Due to its compliance with Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS), Budeshi links budget and procurement data together, whilst covering all stages of the contracting cycle,” she said.

The Chief Executive Officer, PPDC, Seember Nyager, said the initiative was to gather information and interventions of people in the rural settings who are been neglected. “If adequate information is received by the citizens, a level of feedback and monitoring will be achieved,” she said.

She also emphasised on the need for public institutions to adopt the OCDS to enable citizens monitor contracts from tender stage to implementation stage with a unique identifier.