They said one of the lessons learnt during their one-month project was the challenge in accessing critical information for their reviews.

“One of the lessons learnt is that, public officials are not very forthcoming when critical information is needed,” said Mr Gideon Sarpong, Co-Founder of Policy and Content Analysis at iWatch Africa.

[contextly_sidebar id=”SQSkh6Tg3o9JUWtdqMdWqhWuyHt2rvjC”]The Project aims at putting a spotlight on government’s promises and monitoring their implementation in communities across Ghana to get more citizens involved in governance in order to hold their leaders accountable, spearheaded by a group of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI).

Mr. Sarpong, at the closing and evaluation session of the Project, lauded its impact in offering citizens the opportunity to objectively assess the performance of the government through its unified gauge accountability reports.

This, he said, would deepen the democratic process in Ghana, adding that the Project would continue to assess government’s commitments in the 2017 Budget Statement.

The Project reviewed commitments in Health, Education, Government Expenditure and Job Creation during the one month period.

“We look forward to expanding our focus areas to include procurement and SOEs in 2018,” Mr Sarpong said.

He raised concerns about the management of the public purse, which he said was not encouraging after review of several reports by the Auditor General.

“The attorney general has a mandate to recover all monies that were illegally expended,” he noted.

Mr. Sarpong said the iWatch Africa Team was engaging the Ministry of Information to find ways of addressing some of the challenges that they faced during the Project, especially with regard to access to information.

He added that they were also liaising with the Ghana Integrity Initiative on the way forward and how to sustain and scale up the Project in the future.

Ms. Sara V. Stealy, the Press Attaché at the United States’ Embassy in Ghana, commended the team for their hard work and said the focus areas tied in with the Embassy’s work in Ghana.

The use of digital media, including social media on the Project was good for shining the light on the issues identified.

She added that the work of the team represented former President Barack Obama’s vision for the YALI Project.

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Source: GNA

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Out of a total of GHc 33,392,496.94 released to the assemblies in the Greater Accra Region in 2016, GHc 1,589,612.14, representing 4.76% was not properly accounted for according to the report.

iWatch Africa’s assessment of the Auditor General’s report also revealed that, out of a total GHc 352,286,432.22 allotted to all 216 Assemblies, GHc 70,173,645.97, representing 19.92% was not properly accounted for.

Assemblies in the Volta Region mismanaged most of the funds that were allotted them.

Out of a total of GHc 39,846,537.39 released to the twelve Assemblies in the Volta Region in 2016, GHc 13,428,234.45, representing 33%, was not properly accounted for.

This finding is alarming, especially as the current administration expects 85% of local government budget for 2017 to be funded by donors.

Below is an infographic report:

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Source: iWatch Africa

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