 A civil society group Connected Development Code says over 7 million people across 10 African countries are now better equipped to track government-approved projects in their communities using the upgraded I Follow the Money platform. The platform, which was launched by Code, will be deployed to monitor developments in Nigeria, Kenya and the Gambia, Malawi, Cameroon, Liberia, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Cape Verde. Addressing journalists in Abuja, the Executive Director of Code, Malam Hamzat Lawal, said the I Follow the Money upgrade platform is aimed at empowering citizens in Africa with the right information to kick against corruption and hold their governments accountable. In COVID-19, if not for Follow the Money, a lot of citizens would not know about the ground corruption that was happening and even know how much was going into COVID-19 intervention and to what Ministry of Department or Agency of Governments in Nigeria and six other African countries. And a lot of people in the Ministry of Environment were arrested, they were prosecuted and some of them are still serving their jail term, just from our investigative work in documenting how this money has been budgeted, how they have been released and if we are getting value for this money, particularly service delivery at the grassroot level. Of course, we uncovered ground corruption in NDDC, Nigeria Delta Development Commission. We wrote to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and up to date, I remember they invited us to Port Harcourt Regional Office to come and endorse our petition and give them evidence. Nobody was arrested, nobody had been prosecuted, everybody is keeping quiet about it and for us that's why I follow the Money Platform is important. This takes power back to the people and I think this would also inform how citizens vote during elections because integrity should be our world.