GACC DEEPENS SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY

Linda Ofori-Kwafo (middle) addresses the media

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday, December 4, 2014

The Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) says it has identified the lack of attention paid to what it called the ‘demand’ side of governance as a major impediment in the fight against rampant corruption.

The coalition said that strengthening the voice and capacity of ordinary people to directly demand greater accountability and responsiveness from public officials and engaging them in an informed manner would greatly help to stem corruption in the country.

Executive Secretary of the GACC, Linda Ofori-Kwafo revealed this in Accra yesterday when the coalition released its monitoring findings on a social accountability research project conducted in Sefwi Wiawso Municipality and Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai District both in the Western Region.

She said the research results revealed that the delay by the government in releasing funds to the assemblies was forcing the districts to abandon already-started project and it was detrimental to the accelerated development of the country.

She said for instance that projects such as schools, nurses’ hostel in Sefwi Wiawso have stalled due to lack of funds while the construction of a slaughter house, paving of durbar grounds and a four storey business centre in Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai District had been abandoned.

“The Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition is calling on the government to provide answers to the people of Sefwi Wiawso Municipality and Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai District with regards to the status of these projects,” she said.

She said that people are now “seeking a relationship with their government based on transparency, accountability and participation. From the revolutionary change in the Arab world to ‘Occupy’ movements in the western world and even Ghana, signals are that there is increasing frustration with perceived inability of governments to handle complex global problems such as poverty, joblessness and corruption.”

The Executive Secretary urged the government to “rise up in ensuring that the developmental projects are fully executed to benefit the citizens.”

Beauty Emefa Narteh, Communications Officer of GACC said the coalition was committed to improving trust between MMDAs and civil society organizations at the local level as well as institutionalize a platform to forster engagement between the actor.

She said it was important for civil society to insist that development projects are executed in the spirit of transparency and accountability.

Cosmos Kwame Akorli, a Research Officer at IDEG who is also supervising a similar project in other districts said that it was important for civil society organizations to  ‘track’ development projects and ensure that they are completed to serve the public.