Policy Think Tank, the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD), has initiated a framework to deepen social auditing and accountability on projects yet to be executed under the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Program (IPEP).
The Centre undertook a monitoring exercise to assess, in particular, the level of stakeholder awareness and knowledge about the IPEP intervention and the work of the 10 member regional ad-hoc committees set up to
undertake the constituency needs assessment.
It has so far compiled a report which’s findings concentrated on three thematic areas comprising the level of
stakeholders awareness and knowledge about the IPEP policy and intervention, observation of the activities of
the 10 member Regional Ad-hoc committees and validation and reporting of District/Constituency Infrastructure Needs Assessment.
A Senior Research Fellow with the CDD-Ghana, Dr Kojo Asante, at the report’s official launch in Tamale, told Citi News on the sidelines that the Centre’s major concern is to avoid reports of financial misappropriation that characterized the implementation of projects earmarked for the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA).
“This report views and gives early warnings to government prior to the implementation of the program. This is a rare
opportunity for us to start with the program so that we can give early warnings about things that are not right and
correct them before it gets worse.”
He reaffirmed CDD-Ghana’s commitment to hold political office holders accountable for their stewardship.
“Early warnings will be sent to duty bearers. We will want to create a framework where we will get accurate information and demand action… We don’t want politicians to capture the projects for their political gains,” Dr. Asante cautioned.
Dr. Kojo Asante emphasized that, “this will also ensure that the objectives of the projects are met. So we think this is a unique opportunity for us to do this and that is why we took an interest in this very early and the whole idea of also
sharing the early information is that we want to give early warnings so that we can correct ourselves in time before we really get too far in terms of disbursing monies.”
The governing New Patriotic Party in their 2016 campaign manifesto pledged to allocate $275 million of the national capital expenditure through the IPEP to expand and improve on existing capital structures at the district and constituency levels.
This is to accelerate growth, create jobs and reduce poverty particularly in rural and deprived communities.
Government in 2017 inaugurated a 30-member team to lead the implementation of the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme in Northern Ghana.
It was mandated to conduct community needs assessment in all constituencies in the three regions of the north.
The IPEP encompasses the one-district-one factory, one-village-one dam, one-constituency-US$1million and one-district one warehouse among other pro-poor programmes enshrined in the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) 2016 manifesto.
Source: Citifmonline
