Project Tracking

As part of FollowTaxes strategic plans of following and asking the question on all taxes and government revenue. An act that is geared towards improving participatory democracy by empowering citizens and communities with the right data to engage the government and demand accountability. We created a deviancy from the traditional method of NGOs and CBOs being the voice of their communities to equipping the communities to be their VOICES themselves. Through our work, we have increased the civic space by creating more awareness and more demand for accountability from the citizens to the government by helping them have access to open data portals and utilize it. We have linked the citizens to the Kaduna Eyes and Ears, the Kaduna Open Contracting Data Standards Portal, The National NOPOCO Portal, and other Nigerian Open financial and budget portals that serve as sources of information for monitoring budget and procurements. We then worked with the government through our policy dialogues and increased their capacity to be able to engage effectively and deliver services base on need assessment and demand from the communities.

We have established a decentralized structure Under each of our 7 regional leads to comprise of two main teams. First, in the team are the Community Influencers (CIs), second, are the team of Expert Volunteers (EVs) and the third is the Administrative Support team.  The CIs can be individuals, CBOs, or Partners, they are a team of grassroots activists recruited, trained, and deployed by FollowTaxes in partnership with other development partners to promote awareness and grass-root campaigns towards a culture of demand and accountability. VIs are a pool of experts mobilized by FollowTaxes to voluntarily provide a professional interpretation of Bill of Quantities, Medical needs, and Tax Advice. Hitherto, our communities and CIs who are the beneficiaries of the knowledge may not be able to afford the professional fees of the VIs, but through our program, they come in as pro-bono.

Procurement Tracking: FollowTaxes in Partnership with the Public-Private Development Center (PPDC) with Support from Open Contracting Partnership (OCP), Transparency and Accountability Initiative (TAI), OSIWA, and McArthur has so far trained 44 Community Influencers (CIs) who are monitoring more than 264 projects across communities in Kaduna state. All the project data were sourced from the Kaduna Eyes and Ears, The Kaduna OCDS porta, and the PPDC Budeshi Portal. To achieve maximum success and enhance community awareness, A total of 32 Budehi (Budeshi is a local word for Open it) community radio programs were held across Kaduna state. A total of seven town hall meetings were held across communities and 8 Professional volunteers from the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Nigerian Society of Quantity Surveyors, and the Medical Practitioners were involved in the interpretation of the Bill of Quantities, structure integrity, and the requirements in Health facilities. To further bring Open contracting to the community closer FollowTaxes also translated the Kaduna Procurement Law into the local language of Hausa for the local communities to access. The translated document can be found here LINK.

The monitoring progress report can be found at THIS LINK.