Send Ghana, a nongovernmental organisation says, unlike the District Assemblies Common Fund, very little is known by citizens about the existence of the District Development Facility (DDF).
“Most citizens are largely unaware of the DDF because information is not readily available and even where information exists, it is largely couched in technical terms making it incomprehensible to ordinary citizens,” Send Ghana pointed out.
As a result, citizens are unable to engage duty bearers on effective use of the fund for the benefit of the poor and the marginalised in Ghana.
Mr. Adamu Mukaila, Programme Officer of Send Ghana raised this concern at a Regional Level Inception Meeting with Planning Officers, District Coordinating Directors, Presiding Members of the various the Districts and Municipal Assemblies and the media in Wa.
He noted that even though the DDF was based on performance, citizens were often not privy to the results of the assessment and therefore not aware when their district benefited from the fund.
He said such information gap could only be filled when assemblies took up the challenge to provide regular information to the citizens, which they were refusing to do now.
Mr. Mukaila said the overall objective of the project was to contribute to improve service delivery to citizens, especially the marginalised and vulnerable groups through prudent utilisation of the DDF by 2017.
He said about 330 non-state actors organised in District Citizens Monitoring Committees (DCMC) in 30 districts and sub-metros in four regions would be primary targeted groups.
Mr. Mukaila said the government of Ghana established the DDF in collaboration with its development partners with the ultimate aim at modernizing and improving local government financial mechanism in Ghana.
Some development partners including Agence Francaise Development, Canadian Development Agency, Danish Development Agency and German Development Bank had provided Send Ghana with 200,000 pounds sterling to monitoring the utilisation of the project.
The Send Ghana Programme Officer said the DCMCs would receive capacity enhancement to increase their knowledge on DDF, skills in data gathering and analysis as well as improved communication and advocacy skills to enable them to hold duty bearers to account.
About 3,000 community members from the 30 districts would benefit from sensitization on DDF at community durbars to be organised by the DCMCs in collaboration with metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.
Mr. Mukaila said Wa East, Sissala West, Lawra, Jirapa, Nadowli, Lambussie Districts and the Wa Municipal were to benefit from the project.
The participants pledged their support and partnership in the implementation of the project dubbed: “Promoting development effectiveness through transparent and accountable management of the DDF in the region”.
Source: GNA
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