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BudgIT Foundation, a foremost civic tech organisation leading the advocacy for fiscal transparency and accountability in Nigeria, has officially launched the Tracka Mobile 2.0 Application to aid participatory governance at the subnational level.
The Tracka Mobile 2.0 Application is BudgIT’s first mobile app in 10 years. It was developed under the Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement (SCALE) Project with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
On the application, citizens can view all the federal projects in a state in a particular year, they can also search and report specific projects in their community, and view monthly federal allocations to their Local Government Area.
The mobile Application will also enable citizens to connect with the government as a user can post or vote for a community need. This will aid elected representatives, the MDAs, CSOs and NGOs to conduct a proper needs assessment and tailor interventions towards them.
The organisation noted that citizens’ participation in governance and public finance is crucial to ensuring fiscal transparency and effective service delivery; hence, the mobile application will provide simplified data on federal allocations to the three tiers of government, ongoing public projects across all 36 states, and aid needs assessment exercises for elected representatives to optimize project nomination and implementation.
It said the Tracka Mobile 2.0 will help to strengthen the advocacy capacity of CSOs, citizens and pressure groups to engage public institutions and demand improved and sustainable service delivery. Likewise, it will provide research and policy analysts with a repository of data they can leverage for policy documents.
Speaking at the launching of the app, the Project Manager, BudgIT Nigeria, Mr Henry Omokhaye, said: “Considering the challenge of service delivery in the country, the mobile application will ensure that allocated public funds for projects nominated by political office holders at all levels of government are effectively disbursed for the good of the people.
“The platform will also allow citizens to nominate and monitor projects for implementation in their various communities, and this will help to check the culture of non-inclusion of the citizens in the projects nomination process that has led to an increased number of abandoned projects across Nigeria.”
BudgIT added that it will engage public institutions and officials to adopt the mobile application to close the gap between the citizens and their elected officials for improved and sustainable service delivery. Omokhaye noted that the Tracka Mobile 2.0 app is available for download on Google Playstore and will be on iOS in the shortest possible time.
(leadership.ng)
