CARE International in Ghana and Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), have engaged the Parliamentary Select Committee for Local Government, Decentralization, and Rural Development on the Ghana Strengthening Accountability Mechanism (GSAM) Activity.
The GSAM is an eight-year USAID-funded project seeking to improve accountability, transparency and performance at the local government level by strengthening the Government and citizens’ oversight of capital development projects in 100 districts across 10 regions of Ghana.
The 100 districts are divided into two categories of 50 “Audit Districts” and 50 “Social Accountability Districts”.
CARE International in Ghana, OXFAM in Ghana and ISODEC, which form the GSAM Consortium, are working together with the Ghana Audit Service (GAS), 25 Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and other local and national level stakeholders to implement the project from 2014 to 2022.
The aim of the meeting was to brief the Parliamentarians on key findings of the project and the lessons learnt so far such as the institutionalization of the annual performance audit at the decentralized level.
The GSAM project was designed to help bridge the information and accountability gaps, especially at the local level, by increasing information flow to citizens on District Assembly processes, particularly the planning and execution of capital development projects and creating avenues for citizen monitoring, assessment and feedback.
Mr. Bernard Anaba, a Policy Analyst at ISODEC, in his presentation, said information and social accountability improved local governance, thus transparency, accountability and performance.
He said the GSAM used both bottom-up and top-down accountability mechanisms, adding that the key interventions were CSO/Citizen Capacity Strengthening in Capital Project Monitoring, Development of Scorecards on District Assemblies’ Performance, Citizen-Local Government Interfaces, Information and Advocacy Campaigns and Performance Auditing in collaboration with GAS.
Touching on key results of the GSAM Activity, Mr. Anaba cited increased citizen oversight of capital projects, leading to reduction in incidence of corruption, improved responsiveness of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assembles (MMDAs) in capital project delivery, improved quality of capital project implementation and improvement in social service delivery
He said increased citizen participation/oversight of capital projects leading to reduction in incidence of corruption, which was 26 per cent in 2015, increased to 38 per cent in 2020.
With sample cases, he mentioned the provision of a ceiling for a classroom block at Kalegu in Zabzugu District in the Northern Region and the replacement of sub-standard beams for a three-unit classroom block at Mpraem in the Wassa East District of the Western Region
Mr. Anaba said in the project districts, improved responsiveness of MMDAs to citizen’s need, which was 18.7 per cent in 2015 had increased to 54 per cent in 2020, citing a three-unit teachers’ bungalow being revised to six-unit bungalow at Asante in Sefwi Akontombra District of the Western Region and a contractor, including a disability ramp in the construction of a classroom block at Adzorvi in the Agortime Ziope District of the Volta Region
On lessons learnt from the GSAM Activity, Mr. Anaba said many administrators at the decentralized level were motivated to respond to citizens’ demands, but were mostly unable to do so because of political pressure.
Concerning the major achievements of the project, he said the use of community scorecards was very instrumental in engendering local participation and citizens’ knowledge.
He said the use of community volunteers and the performance audit was an important top-down accountability process that provided a technical appraisal of the MMDA process.
He recommended that the Select Committee on Local Government, Decentralization and Rural Development adopted the concept of Community Development Monitors alongside the sub-local structures in their community engagements and project monitoring activities.
He also urged Assemblies to use Community score-cards in community engagement on projects and service delivery engagements.
Mr. Samuel A Boateng, Deputy Chief of Party, GSAM Activity, CARE International in Ghana, said the project, which started in 2014 was expected to end in September 2022.
He said having implemented the project for the past eight years, they felt that there were some things that required the support of the Select Committee to push into policies, laws and other things that were within their mandate.
Mr. Emmanuel Gyamfi, Chairman, Parliamentary Select Committee on Local Government and Rural Development, commenting on the analysis report of the Auditor-General, noted that it was too general and that there was also the need for some detailed work over the content, so that one could be able to make reference to it
Mr. Edwin Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, Ranking Member, Parliamentary Select Committee on Local Government and Rural Development, said the GSAM Activity was a very good project, saying, “just that in Ghana as we all know, we don’t seem to take some of these things too seriously”.
“One fundamental principle under this that I urge them to do was to link up those behind this project with those behind the District League Table so that we could effectively see how they collaborate; because I believe that transparency and accountability should also be some of the key indicators in evaluating district assemblies.”
GNA
