A member of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, Chinedu Martins, is proposing the creation of a new agency to oversee how federal projects are carried out across the country, a move aimed at curbing waste, inflated costs, and the rising number of abandoned projects.
If established, the National Independent Project and Monitoring Agency (NIPMA) would operate independently to track, audit, and evaluate capital projects handled by government ministries and contractors.
Speaking in Abuja on Thursday, Martins criticised the current structure, where the same government bodies that award contracts are also tasked with monitoring them.
“This arrangement is inherently defective. As the saying goes, you cannot be a judge in your own case,” he said.
Martins emphasised that while Nigeria budgets trillions of naira every year for infrastructure, many of the projects either never get completed or are poorly executed.
“Across the country, we encounter the scars of abandoned, substandard, or poorly executed projects… This is not only wasteful; it is unacceptable,” he added.
The proposed agency, he explained, would offer independent oversight and ensure that projects are completed within budget and on schedule.
“Independent oversight will eliminate collusion, reinforce accountability, and significantly reduce the trend of abandoned projects,” Martins noted.
He also highlighted the economic potential of the bill, saying the agency could generate jobs for professionals such as engineers, auditors, quantity surveyors, and data analysts, while restoring public confidence in the system.
Importantly, Martins clarified that NIPMA is not meant to replace existing institutions like the Bureau of Public Procurement or the Office of the Auditor-General, but to complement them by focusing on real-time, on-the-ground project monitoring.
The bill is currently awaiting a public hearing to gather input from stakeholders.