PPDC - NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIA

Philip Daniel Yatai
Feb, Thu, 2025

PPDC partners Shelta Panacea to promote affordable housing for Nigerians

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By Jacinta Nwachukwu

The Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC), an NGO, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Shelta Panacea Ltd. to improve access to justice and promote affordable housing for Nigerians.

The Chief Executive Officer of PPDC, Ms Lucy Abagi, who said this on Wednesday in Abuja, said the partnership also aimed at providing free legal services to 10,000 landlords across Nigeria.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Shelta Panacea Ltd. is a Property Tech company dedicated to solving the common problem that exists between property owners and property users.

PPDC is a non-profit organisation committed to improving citizen’s participation in governance in a way that improves the integrity of public governance processes, fostering transparent and accountable governance.

Abagi said the centre’s programme interventions would address both the demand and the supply side, saying that the ‘demand side’ refers to the users of the public sector.

She said that the ‘supply side’, refers to those institutions, organisations and individuals that provide public services.

According to her, this is to ensure increased compliance, improved landlord/tenant relationships, reduced disputes and increased property values.

Abagi noted that well-informed landlords were more likely to maintain their property, adhere to safety standards and make necessary repairs as well as support for small landlords.

“The PPDC Access to Justice Programme has successfully provided free legal services to more than 9,000 Nigerians.

“The group, which has strengthened justice sector reforms, will leverage on its technological legal innovations and network of lawyers to support Shelta Panacea’s mission.

“PPDC will play a critical role in recruiting, supervising and ensuring fair remuneration for lawyers handling these cases.

“PPDC has always been committed to ensuring access to justice for all, particularly for vulnerable and marginalised groups.

“This collaboration with Shelta Panacea allows us to extend our expertise beyond the criminal justice space to civil disputes,” she added.

The partnership, she said, would ensure that landlords who might otherwise struggle with prolonged legal battles could access professional legal representation at no cost.

On his part, the Chief Executive Officer, Shelta Panacea, Mr Austin Igwe, recalled that the organisation had years ago started the project to solve the problem that existed between property owners and property users.

“We’ve discovered that Nigeria is one of the few countries in the world where you earn monthly, and this is the basis most likely for the challenge that has happened between landlords and tenants.

“This has actually led to so many deficits, delays in payments and countless court cases between landlords and tenants”, Igwe said.

He cited some cases in which the landlords wanted to take their rent annually while the tenant wanted to pay their rent flexibly.

He added that the purpose of the initiative was to help solve the problem by providing the technology.

According to him, the organisation has been able to provide a system that guarantees the rent on the landlord annually just the way he wants it.

“It also helps to provide a bridge for the tenant, to also choose the payment at his or her convenience.

“This flexibility has helped to eradicate, to a large extent, nearly 100 per cent of the issues that have existed between the landlords and the tenants.

“The organisation is managing some housing property across 14 states in Nigeria and intends to extend the service to other states’’, he said.(NAN)

Edited by Francis Onyeukwu/Deji Abdulwahab

Philip Daniel Yatai
Jan, Tue, 2025

General News

PPDC, ministry of justice seek compliance with FOI Act

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By Jacinta Nwachukwu

Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) and the Federal Ministry of Justice have urged private and public institutions to actively comply with the principles of Freedom of Information Act for more accountability.

The actors made the call during a roundtable engagement on the submission of the compliance reports on Freedom of Information (FOI) Act by public institutions in Abuja.

In her remarks, the Chief Executive Officer, PPDC, Lucy Abagi, said that the event was organised to promote transparency and accountability in governance by ensuring compliance with the Act.

Abagi said that the Act had remained a democratic instrument empowering citizens with the right to public information and fostering a culture of openness.

According to her, FOI has played an official role in social accountability, reducing corruption and promoting public trust in government institutions.

She said over the last 10 years, PPDC had been pioneering the FOI ranking, adding that for every year, it tried to assess the proactive disclosure of ministries, departments and agencies with the FOI Act.

Abagi said although progress had been made, challenges still persisted in achieving full compliance with the Act by public institutions.

“We’ve also identified a lot of gaps; you know, when you are dealing with the government, there’s always some level of transfers that happens with officers to different agencies or to different states.

“So there’s a lot of capacity gaps, one of which is for the FOI desk officers to respond to the FOI Act requests by citizens or other organisations to actually know where monies are going to and what those monies are being used for.

“So this training, in partnership with the ministry of justice, is to begin to identify areas of gaps and challenges that need to be filled across over 150 public institutions.

“We are hoping that governments are not just spending money on the budget, or are not just easily funding without accountability.

“We want to ensure that our procurement process is right; we want to ensure that there is transparency; we want to ensure that there is reduced corruption,” she said.

Abagi also encouraged all stakeholders to consider the training as an opportunity to address challenges, share experiences and explore innovative ways of strengthening compliance.

According to her, transparency is not just a legal requirement, it is a responsibility that promotes trust and drives sustainable growth in the society.

“We are dedicated to advancing procurement transparency and improving citizens’ access to information,” she added.

Earlier, the Head of Freedom of Information Unit, ministry of justice, Mr Garuba Godwin, while giving an overview of the FOI Act, said it was applicable to all MDAs.

Godwin said that the Act also applied to private institutions utilising public funds; hence the need for both government and private institutions to comply with its principles.

He said that with the establishment of the Act, no public document would become secret officially, saying that every Nigerian citizen had the right to access information from public documents.

“Last year, we had about 91 public institutions that complied with the release of government information.

“The honorable minister of justice has taken administrative action to ensure that this year, if not half of the total number of the public institutions we have in this country, we should have a majority of them complying.

“Last year, we engaged about 100, and this year, we are engaging about 300; so they have come to the knowledge that government activities are no longer secret.

“Citizens should have access to exactly what the government is doing, and if you look at the presidency, the president also came out to hold ministers and heads of MDAs accountable for their activities,” he said.

Godwin, however, said that access to government information records was not in all circumstances, as there were some exemptions to the Act.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training was organised by the centre, in collaboration with the ministry of justice, with the support of MacArthur Foundation. (NAN)

Edited by ‘Wale Sadeeq