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GSAM's performance auditing tools worth emulating - Dan Botwe

The Minister of Local Government and Decentralization and Rural Development, Dan Botwe has described as worth emulating the system controls imbibed in the citizenry and policy implementers in the various metropolitan, municipal and district Assemblies that the USAID sponsored Ghana Strengthening Accountability Mechanisms (GSAM) Activity was implemented over the past eight (8) years.

Date Created : 9/29/2022 12:00:00 AM : Story Author : Dominic Shirimori/Ghanadistricts.com

According to him, the achievements and impacts made under the GSAM Activity in the respective Assemblies are valuable lessons that would help in promoting probity, accountability and good governance, and would ensure duty-bearers are more responsive to the socio-economic development of the people they serve.

Speaking at the GSAM Activity’s ‘lessons learned’ Conference on Wednesday September 28, 2022, on the theme: Promoting accountability in public service delivery at the local level, the Minister underscored GSAM's significant contributions to transformational behavioral changes in accountability within the local government sector by strengthening the capacity of civil society to advocate, monitor and investigate efforts of the primary actors, particularly, MMDAs, to ensure sustainable, accountable and inclusive delivery of quality services to citizens.

The interventions, he noted, have also contributed to improved responsiveness of MMDAs to citizens' demands and efficiency in the management and implementation of development projects in communities, working in close collaboration with key stakeholders.

And said his interest therefore is to consolidate the gains made with regard to the management interventions that have generated positive results relating to accountability and transparency practices in the MMDAs and how it can be replicated in all the 261 MMDAs.

"This achievement is corroborated by the results from our annual performance-based assessment of MMDAs using the District Assemblies Performance Assessment Tool (DPAT); where all 261 assessed in the years 2020 and 2021 had presented their Auditor-General's Report to the General Assembly.

The MMDCEs had also held community engagements with citizens within their areas of jurisdiction, in addition to the bi-annual Town Hall Meetings organised by all MMDAs. Clearly, we are making strides to entrench local governance, accountability and transparency at the local level", he stated.

He assured the commitment of the Ministry and government in promoting Accountability and Transparency at the local level through popular participation through the active engagement of citizens and non-state actors in decision-making.

Meanwhile, Dr. Esther Ofei-Aboagye, who delivered the keynote address said government’s efforts at improving financial auditing including the passage of the public financial management (PFM) act and its attendant regulations; reforms to public procurement processes; and other efforts to strengthen governance, accountability and transparency institutions have all been in the right direction.

However, her regret is that the state of social accountability in Ghana has not been the best; stating that the efforts to enhance supply side accountability have not been matched with similar levels of investment in demand side accountability. Citizens are shortchanged by non-performance of service providers, corruption, disappointing results and insufficient justification for the taxes they pay.

Luckily enough, GSAM has shown the way to improve performance auditing. She said the achievements of GSAM in its 100 operating MMDAs is worth the investments as it empowers CSOs, and communities to engage district level authorities to exact accountability.

Dr. Aboagye called for intensive education and advocacy to foster ownership of these processes by the traditional authorities, local social groups, welfare clubs, occupational groups and associations and faith institutions.

"They must be brought to such assessment efforts from the perspective of making local authorities work for their geographic and socio-economic areas.

Members of Parliament and assembly members must de-emphasize the partisan elements of their messages, campaigns and services to promote the collective good".

For her, strengthening of information-dissemination, complaints mechanisms, grievance-handling processes and feedback resources are an essential part of responding to citizens. As such, she advocates for rebranding of local governance to emphasize their service responsibilities and obligations to the citizenry and residents.

USAID through its partners CARE International and civil society organizations

have for the past eight years implemented the Ghana Strengthening Accountability Mechanisms Activity, (GSAM), a performance auditing assessment programme to ensure accountability at the local government system.

GSAM ensured increased citizens’ capacity to demand accountability from the trustees of public resources by strengthening top-down oversight processes, in collaboration with the Ghana Audit Service; and strengthening bottom-up social accountability activities, in collaboration with other partners like CARE International and civil society organizations.

The results have been phenomenal as speaker after speaker called for it to be sustained and extended to all 261 MMDAs to strengthen accountability in the delivery of public services.

According to Kimberly Rosen, USAID Mission Director, a USAID-commissioned impact evaluation of the GSAM Activity revealed that citizen action with the support of local CSOs has improved consultation between citizens and their respective local governments on infrastructure development.

The evaluation also found that a key intervention with the Ghana Audit Service (GAS) to conduct value-for-money audits on district capital projects reduced the incidence of partisan manipulation of district budgets by local politicians.