Forty volunteers of the District Accountability Project in Asutifi and Tano South Districts of the Brong Ahafo Region, have benefited from a project to enhance their competence to hold their district assemblies responsible.
The project was organised by the Centre for Sustainable Development (CSD), a non-governmental organisation (NGO).
The District Accountability Project was introduced in 2007 by the Centre for Active Development, an NGO in collaboration with another NGO- Action Aid Ghana.
It was funded by RAVI, an international NGO with CSD as an implementing partner.
The objectives of the three-year project, among other things, are to equip citizens to participate in all aspects of revenue mobilisation and utilisation for development interventions in their districts.
The volunteers commended CSD for the training programme during a public interactive sessions organised by the Centre at Kenyasi Number Two in Asutifi and Techimantia in Tano South to phase-out the project.
The volunteers unanimously lauded the project for assisting them to sensitise their communities on the need to pay their taxes to the assemblies to generate enough revenue for community development.
“We wish we can get such periodic training when the next phase of the project begins so that we can contribute our quota for the district assemblies to increase revenue generation”, Mr Yaw Ntow, Chairman of the Tano South volunteers said.
He explained that through the project the District Assembly was constructing an eight-unit teachers’ bungalow at Subriso.
The project had also empowered some of the community members to monitor contractors against shoddy work.
Mr Peter B. Subaab, Executive Director of CSD, observed that district assemblies had depended so much on their share of the District Assemblies’ Common Fund.
“This is because community members are not aware that locally generated revenue is also to be used for development and since (they) are ignorant about this they are not able to hold district assemblies accountable to the tax payers,” he said.
Mr Subaab said this had created a situation where tax payers did not see the benefit of paying taxes.
He said it was against this background that the project, used the right-based approach to development, to put pressure on duty bearers to meet their obligations to respect, protect and fulfil such rights.