CSOs advocate active citizens’ participation in development process

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By
Iddi Yire, GNA

Accra, Jan. 22, GNA –
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), championing appropriate utilisation of
public funds through social accountability strategies, have underscored the
need for citizens to be involved in all development process in their
communities.

The CSOs said the
inclusion of the marginalised in the development process would help strengthen
the nation’s decentralisation effort; and ensure active citizens’
participation.

Among other
recommendations was the need to strengthen the dissemination of information
between the Assembly and citizens through the publication of the Assembly’s
projects, contract requirements to aid citizen contractors bid for the project,
and the erection of sign posts at project sites with project details on them.

The CSOs made the
recommendations in Accra, during a meeting to validate findings on the data
collected to assess a three-unit Children and Maternity Ward at Abokobi Health
Centre over a three-year period.

The Ga East Social
Audit Committee (SAC) community scorecard (CSC) assessment constitutes an
activity under the project “Enhancing citizens’ participation and social
accountability at the district level”.

The project is a
component of the Support for Decentralisation Reforms (SfDR) programme being
implemented jointly by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development
and the German International Cooperation (GIZ).

The project sought
to enhance the active participation, prudent management and utilisation of
public resources, responsiveness by local authorities and improved quality of
service delivery.

Under the auspices
of GIZ, the programme is being managed by four lead CSOs, and People’s Dialogue
the lead CSO for the Greater Accra and Eastern Regions.

Active CSOs were
identified as counterpart entities to support the implementation; these
selected entities became the SAC for the Ga East Municipal Assembly.

Intervention Forum
(IF), a local non- governmental organization, among the selected counterpart
entities worked under the direct oversight of Peoples Dialogue in partnership
with the Ga East Municipal Assembly to facilitate the implementation of this
project within its jurisdiction.

Madam Nora Ollennu,
Chief Executive Officer of IF, noted that the findings were based on four
indicators; planning, contracting, implementation and monitoring.

She noted that from
a scorecard of one to five, under ‘planning’ the duty bearers were scored 3.67,
3.0 and 3.80 by the community members, health directorate and health centre,
respectively.

She said the
community’s involvement during the selection of the project through town hall
meetings, the reduction of the choke in the old school block due to the
population increase were some of the reasons that influenced the average score.

Madam Ollennu said
with regard to ‘contracting’ the indicator recorded the lowest average among
the four indicators, its total average was 2.32 which represents bad, adding
“some of the reasons were the failure of the assembly to publish the tender in
the print media and on community notice boards”.

She said with
implementation being the execution stage, duty bearers were scored a total
average of 2.98 which when rounded up, would fall under the just okay column.

The immediate users
of the facility, the pregnant women and health centre scored them 2.27 and 2.75
respectively.

Madam Ollennu said
the last indicator being ‘monitoring’ recorded a total average of 2.48 which
represented bad; the beneficiaries made complaints of not having the
appropriate channels to make their worries known.

She said some of the
citizens said they were unaware of their right to undertake any monitoring
activities, adding that “these reasons among others influenced the total average
of this indicator”.

Speaking to the
Ghana News Agency (GNA), Mr Alex Amoah, immediate past Planning Officer at Ga
East Municipal Assembly, expressed the hope that the Assembly would embrace the
recommendations and ensure all issues were addressed.

He said, however,
citizens also had a role to play, by helping to mobilize funds to undertake
various projects through the payment of their rates, particularly property
rates, stating that “the District Assembly Common Fund alone will not be
enough”.

Mr Kojo Anane
Frimpong, a representative of People’s Dialogue, also told GNA that to be able
to monitor more projects and ensure there was value for money, SAC and the
Assembly must continuously work together.

He said citizens
were to be aware of the happenings within their respective district assemblies,
monitor their annual budgets and action plans, so that under this project they
identified SAC, which comprises the CSOs working, community members and the
assembly representative.

GNA