Ashaiman citizens demand access to public information
Participants at a Social Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability forum have called on officials of the Ashaiman Municipal Assembly to guarantee citizens unfettered access to public information to enable them monitor activities and projects being undertaken.
The call comes after the appeal made by the Coalition on the Rights To Information for Parliament to speed up the passage of the country’s RTI bill into law to guarantee people’s right to public information without any impediments.
Some participants told the Ghana News Agency on sidelines of the forum that knowledge was so crucial to living conditions that authorities ought to give citizens free access to information bordering development projects and programmes to aid supervision.
“Information is power, it must be accessible to us, there are people who cannot read but when the information is given to us in a pictorial form on let’s say citing a market or toilet we can also assess the possibility of whether it is good for us or not,” Mr Charles Zuttah, a member of the Ghana Federation of Urban Poor, said.
“We must be part of dreaming the projects so that we can supervise the implementation process, the authorities have the professional eyes, we may not be against government citing a project if we are engaged and understand why this project is here and not there, it will reduce tension and conflicts,” he said.
Mr Zuttah said the assembly’s failure to provide timely and relevant information about their activities and programmes including placement of community projects has largely turned many market places, toilet facilities and a host of public buildings into white elephants.
Mrs Fati Lily Soale, the Head of Social Accountability Unit at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, said the unit has developed a simplified public financial management template that deconstructs technical language used by the assemblies.
She said the move formed part of the unit efforts to ensure that all citizens, literates and illiterates, accessed public information to enable them to mobilise themselves to monitor projects being undertaken by their respective assemblies.
Mrs Soale said citizens’ lack of interest in the assemblies’ activities was a source of concern that ought to be addressed since it affected public good and waned national responsibility.
“There is apathy among the people, there is no sense of responsibility and this is why we have a poor maintenance culture, but then illiteracy rate is very high, we have to build their capacity, which the SPEFA forum is doing now, though this is very expensive we have to stimulate their interest,” she said.
Mr Kojo Anane, Programme Officer of People’s Dialogue, said poverty could hardly be slashed in the country, unless duty-bearers make deliberate efforts to strengthen social accountability at all levels of the development ladder.
However, he noted that the challenge facing citizens’ active participation in local governance and development was apathy, conflict of interest and individuals positioning their personal interest above national interest.
The SPEFA forum is a component of the local government capacity support project of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning as well as Local Government Service Secretariat.
It is being executed by People’s Dialogue, a community-based nongovernmental organisation that seeks to disabuse citizens’ negative perceptions of urban management, and improve their engagement with city authorities to bolster local development.
Source: GNA