By Mildred Siabi-Mensah
Effia(WR), Sept. 21, GNA – Friends of the Nation (FoN), a civil society organisation, has undertaken a two-day citizen-led participatory exercise to track public funded projects in the Effia-Kwesimintsim Municipality in the Western Region.
The exercise, was to strengthen transparency, accountability and citizen oversight in the utilisation of public resources, including the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF).
The initiative formed part of a project being implemented by FoN under the Participation, Accountability and Integrity for a Resilient Democracy (PAIReD) programme, with support from the German Development Corporation (GIZ) and funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the European Union (EU) and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).
Mr. William Augustine Dankyi, project officer at FoN, said the project sought to strengthen and institutionalise citizen-led accountability mechanisms that enabled citizens to engage duty-bearers on the equitable, transparent and accountable use of public funds and extractive-resource revenues.
The monitoring brought together technical officers of the Effia-Kwesimintsim Municipal Assembly, Assembly members, youth, women, journalists and persons with disabilities, among other stakeholders.
The team monitored school projects, CHPS compound projects, markets which were all at various stages of completion.
What was striking in all the projects were no disability friendly access despite the expiration of the 10year grace period by government, even state institutions like the EKMA continued to ignore that law.
Project information, and signage was also nowhere to be found and thus leaving many community members uninformed about key information to enable proper follow-up and engagement.
The initiative built on previous and ongoing interventions by FoN to promote transparency, reporting and accountability in the use of the DACF, DACF-RFG, Minerals Development Fund (MDF), Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) and timber royalties.
GNA
Edited by Justina Hilda Paaga /Kenneth Odeng Adade
Reporter Mildred Siabi-Mensah