Solar pumping system in rural area a waste —ICPC official

AN official of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), Mrs Adeoluwa Karakaraye Faustina, has condemned the use of solar pumping system in the country.

Mrs Faustina faulted the use of solar system especially in the rural areas after a three-week exercise of investigating fraudulent procurement practices in the award of contracts for constituency and executive projects in Oyo State.

She urged the Federal Government to put an end to the use of solar pumping system, saying that the money expended on such project is not justified as people do not benefit from it.

The monitoring team visited Ajinapa water scheme, Ibudo-Ode, Kajola Ogbin-Ile, Adafila, Onikoko, Aipo, Isale Agbele, Ijio, Iwajowa and Papa Abede, among others.

Speaking after evaluating some of the projects, Karakaraye said the essence of the exercise was to track the executive projects in rural areas, see where those projects have been executed and whether they are serving the purpose they were meant to serve.

She stated that the objective of government is to give people dividends of democracy.

“What I have noticed in the last three weeks is obvious. We have discovered that none of these projects is serving the purpose they are supposed to serve.

“From experience, we were told that some of those faulty items have to be transported back to Germany. When you initiate a scheme that is not helpful because people are not actually benefitting from it, this is just a waste of money.

“The money invested in this project is not justified. So, let’s stop the use of solar pumping system. Electricity is almost everywhere now and buying machine that is not repairable is a waste of money, it’s better to stop it,” she said.

Also, the Civil Society Operation, team lead for ICPC executive and constituency project tracking, Professor Adewole Adeyeye, faulted some of the projects evaluated.

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