Tracka Nigeria, a project by BudgIT that enables citizens to track and give feedback on public projects in their communities, has discoovered a N56million fraud in the 2020 Federal Government budget for the rehabilitation of ICSA/Ramat Hostel at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State.

The capital project, captured in the 2020 Kaduna State budget, was listed as ongoing.

“I went to the hostel to check on the project, which was captioned as ‘ongoing’. When I reached the site it was only the roofing that was done,” TrackaNG official Bright Osula told FIJ.

“What they did wasn’t up to the amount captured in the project. Inside the hostel everything was ripped off. It was as if the project was waiting for the rain to wash it away.”

Students were in session and were complaining about the dilapidated state of the hostel. They told Bright that the only good thing was light but nothing else to write home about.

“The renovation of the hostel was carried out three months ago,” Osula told FIJ. “At least a month or two is enough to renovate the hoste. What I saw was bad governance.”

Another project to be rehabilitated in the school was the store, which was allocated N19 million and was also captioned ‘ongoing’. The storekeeper said nothing had been done for the past 30 years.

“The store has not been touched at all,” the storekeeper said.

With the rainy season set to start next month, the students will suffer for the negligence of the government. In Kaduna it’ has rained two to three times and more rain is expected. The windows of the hostel were not fixed and apart from the roof, which wasn’t worth the amount allocated for rehabilitation, nothing else was done.