A coalition of over 100 civil society organisations (CSOs) in Abia State, under the aegis of Open Government Partnership (OGP), has knocked the Governor Ikpeazu-led government over exclusion of its members from the project implementation and funding from development partners.

Some of the organisations are: Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy & Development (FENRAD), Engagement Working Group, Service Delivery Working Group, Health & Rural Development Agenda (HARDA), Rural Welfare International Initiative (RUWII), Neighbourhood Environment Watch Foundation (NEW), Aid for Community Sustainable Development Foundation (ACSD), Center for Popular Participation and Local initiatives (CENPPALIN) and many others.

The coalition, while lamenting over the exclusion, explained in a recent statement that the policy implementation by the Abia State Government without their involvement was totally against the prerequisites for World Bank’s States Transparency Accountability & Sustainability (SFTAS) programme and Open Government Partnership (OGP).

It noted that both allow states to fully participate and access funds from World Bank for development projects at a sub-national level with CSOs playing the oversight functions.

“The Federal Government’s Fiscal Sustainability Plan (FSP) requires that actions be implemented by state governments and the Nigerian OGP National Action Plan (NAP) at the state-level, but as a group, it is sad and lamentable that we are not being consulted nor carried along, even after signing in OGP by the Abia State Government in 2018,” the coalition said in a statement jointly signed on Monday.

The statement read further: “It bears repeating that the OGP is itself a co-creation initiative between the government and civil society groups represented at both the national and sub-national levels, but a situation where the federal government, through the OGP National Secretariat, leverages same to participate, monitor, evaluate and assess the processes and conditions of the interventions and resource administration in line with Annual Performance Assessment (APA) of the World Bank – which qualifies the states to access grants, the sub-national actors’ case has a different dimension.

“The Exclusion of Citizens Actors in Abia state OGP process is anti-people, undemocratic and unacceptable and it is not in the spirit of co-creation. These policies of Government lack inclusiveness which is the hallmark of international engagement by both sub-national and civil society groups – para-diplomacy and track two diplomacy.

“OGP and SFTAS are performance-based such that to draw from the World Bank facilities is to meet conditions like: open budgeting, open procurement, financial reporting, proactive disclosure, diligence report, all which qualify a state to access the facility. The Abia State OGP state actors on their own, cannot claim to have shown much financial discipline, fair play, transparency, accountability and/or committed to any other indices of drawing grants, when there is no proper tracking, monitoring and evaluation of every resource support so received by the civil society organization.

“Sub-national governments do projects using facilities from the World Bank and other donor support without the knowledge or inclusion of the citizens’ group. This is largely caused by lack of accountability, communication gap and disconnect between governments and the populace. Accountability entails that governments work in tandem with the civil society organizations/other non-state actors towards making efficient use and channeling of development support to meaningful areas that could trigger development and reduce poverty.

“What claims do the governments have to openness when their process negates the principle of Open Government Partnership (OGP) where civil society groups are not aware of the on-goings of such governments’ activities, regarding how these supports are being put into use .

“There is flagrant non-adherence to open procurement process and pro-active disclosure, most of the Freedom of Information requests sent to various MDAs to access information on the procurement process wasn’t honored, thereby negating the principles of Open Government Partnership the Government signed on to.

“While, for example, ?43 billion was disbursed among 24 State governments for April 2020 (in third quarter of 2021, Q3 2021) across the federation from World Bank, which Abia State was a beneficiary, yet nothing is known about procurement in the said or targeted areas and other support coming to the state as part of the derivable for signing on to OGP and fulfilling required indices. It is unfortunate the development partners have joined the government actors to undermine the position of the civil society organisations in the state as projects are conceptualised and implemented without CSOs input in the spirit of co-creation and open government Partnership(OGP).

“This is against all the assumptions of OGP State Action Plan (NAP) and does not tackle corruption as OGP aims to achieve, especially if financial activities of state actors are vague making benchmarking and evaluation an impossibility.

“The governments need to respect the 16-point commitments of the OGP to which they are signatories and as well the 22-point Fiscal Sustainability Plan (FSP) which allows the States to implement 19 areas for Disbursement Linked Indicator (DLI)

“The Community needs-identified projects captured in 2019/2020 Budget was not implemented by the state Actors despite the resources spent by Development partners PERL to undertake the process through the CSOs support to ensure the process which was democratically done through community members involvement.

“Unfortunately, few months to the end of the Abia state OGP two-year Action Plan, the steering committee of the State OGP Committee has just met once and process of engagement of the government actors has been closed, thereby violating the principles of co-creation and citizens engagement which are the critical components of the Open Government Partnership process.

“Ahead of the review by the international partners and OGP Secretariat, the Abia State Civil Society Organizations’ under the OGP as a group, will be submitting its shadow reports of the OGP implementation in the State. It is unfortunate to say that the government’s actors have willfully and deliberately excluded the CSO OGP members from the OGP action plan implementation and other oversights in the state. This is a worrisome trend and there is no justification to prove that there is co-creation and inclusiveness and even OGP process in the state is in question,” the statement read.

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