By Lawrencia Akoto Frempong
Aburi (ER), Nov. 3, GNA – The Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) has upscaled efforts to empower the Local Accountability Network (LANets) Focal Persons through multi-stakeholder accountability initiatives to increase the building of evidence and the success story of accountability.
Mr. Samuel Harrison-Cudjoe, the Programmes Manager of the GACC, explained that the LANets project aimed at building evidence for accountability in the country had three main strands it sought to achieve at the end.
Mr. Harrison-Cudjoe told the Ghana News Agency in an interview on the sidleines of a workshop at Aburi in the Eastern Region under the project “Building Evidence for Increased Accountability in Ghana through a Multi-Stakeholder Accountability Initiative”.
He said the GACC, through the “Learning and Sharing Workshop with LANets,” aimed at conducting a follow-up on the audit recommendations made for the district levels by the Auditor General as well as the implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP).
It is also aimed at the district level and building a citizen agency, which will be more of a sensitization for the citizens on what corruption was and the key issues in terms of corruption.
He said the GACC and LANets would engage the district assemblies, come up with the recommendations made to them by the Auditor General, and follow-up to ask how far they had resolved the issues.
Mr. Harrison-Cudjoe said: “We do this to ensure that the public financial management system within the assemblies is strengthened and that we use the general or specific rules of the NACAP for them.”
He also explained that “learning and sharing” is meant to get partners implementing the project to review work done in the first phase and, out of that, propose strategies to ensure the success of the implementation in the next phase.
“The GACC has been able to talk through the activities done, propose a strategy, and add a new implementation, that is, collecting success stories and major change stories that the project has seen,” he said.
He said the GACC would again work together with the Auditor General and the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) so that we can dialogue with them and find out how best they can work to ensure that activities are implemented.
He therefore urged state agencies to see CSOs as partners in development, noting that the coalition was not to witch hunt them or whip up the communities against them, but rather they are there to facilitate their engagement with communities to work to ensure development was enhanced at the district levels.
“The GACC is interested in helping to ensure that the district levels achieve their goals and therefore encourages them to see them as partners and work together with them cordially for good results,” Mr. Harrison-Cudjoe said.
Mrs. Beauty Emefa Narteh, GACC Executive Secretary, also explained that the coalition, with support from the Hewlett Foundation, implemented a project aimed at building evidence to strengthen accountability through a multi-stakeholder initiative in Ghana.
She said the successful implementation of the first phase of the Hewlett Project led to the receipt of a grant to implement a second phase of the project, “Building Evidence for Increased Accountability in Ghana through a Multi-Stakeholder Accountability Initiative II”.
She said this second phase seeks to deepen the results from the first, which was to ensure that misappropriated sums in selected public institutions were recovered and saved for efficient government spending.
That public financial management systems are strengthened for efficient spending and the reduction of leakages of public funds; and increased implementation of NACAP activities and institutions’ responsiveness.
Other pillars of phase II include reduced corruption owing to the comprehensive, effective implementation of NACAP activities, increased citizen awareness of anti-corruption issues and agencies, and an institutionalised channel for project progress tracking and learning.
GNA