Kubori (N/ER), Sept 4, GNA – The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has held a day’s forum on social auditing for residents of Kubori Community in the Mamprugu-Moagduri District of the North East Region.
The forum, which was on the theme, “Accountability, Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Programme (ARAP)”, is being sponsored by the European Union (EU) and aims to deepen democracy while reducing corruption.
Mr Thomas Issahaku Imoro, the Mamprugu-Moagduri District Director of the Commission explained that social auditing was a concept that was introduced by the commission to allow communities prioritize their needs and initiate development projects.
The objective was to promote community ownership of development projects and policies, increase awareness of the operations of the Local Government and empower the citizenry to demand accountability from duty bearers, he added.
The event, which brought together the chief, opinion and religious leaders of the community was to further afford the opportunity for members of the community to deliberate on their development needs and how to get solutions to those challenges.
He said social auditing was not an event, but a process whereby the citizenry could actively participate in the governance system by involving in the implementation of policies, programmes and projects that affected their livelihoods.
The District Director anticipated that the initiative would adequately empower community members to play active roles in reducing corruption, ensuring transparency and rule of law leading to participatory democracy.
The District Director said central government could not provide the needs of every community and therefore it was imperative for members of the community to initiate their own projects and seek for support to complete them to improve their lives.
This, he said, would enable the projects being implemented meet the needs of the community and ensure they owned and protected it.
The members of the community prioritized their needs and identified lack of potable water as their topmost development need which needed urgent attention.
They explained that the water table in the community was very low and they had easy access to water only in the rainy season.
Some Non-Governmental Organizations had tried unsuccessfully to sink boreholes, they said.
The residents therefore appealed to government to connect the community through pipes to the White Volta to regularly support them with water and in their view it was the best solution to their water crisis since no borehole could be sunk in the community.
The community members further identified lack of markets for their farm produce particularly rice, insecurity along the Zanwara-Fumbisi-Mankarigu road, lack of critical drugs at Kubori Health Centre as well as teenage pregnancy.
Through the efforts of the NCCE, a seven-member community implementation committee was established to ensure that they followed up on their development needs to have them addressed.
GNA