Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in the Northern Region have called on government to make information on policies and programmes it has initiated available and accessible to the citizenry.
The CBOs said details on government borrowings as well as the free senior high school and the double track systems for examples, should be made transparent, with an active citizens’ participation and broader consultations all levels in mind.
These were contained in a communiqué issued in Tamale at the end of a two-day festival of CBOs in the Northern Region.
The communiqué read on behalf of the CBOs by their chairperson, Madam Mariama Yakubu, among others stated that government should avoid delays in the disbursement of funds meant for the implementation of flagship programmes such as the free SHS in order to avoid truncating schools reopening schedules.
The CBOs network thereby called on government to learn from best practices where free education had been practice so that the quality education would not be compromised.
The participants noted that the centralization of government spending instead of decentralizing them create room for corruption and political interference thereby politicizing development programs and projects. All these the communiqué stated could derail the impact of government overall objective thereby creating discrimination among communities.
While urging government to widen the tax net to include the informal sector and also blocking leakages in revenue collection, the CBO Network stated that they on their part would encourage their members to pay required taxes to facilitate national development, alongside playing watchdog roles by monitoring the effective utilization of public funds for sustainable government programmes.
The CBOs Network which has been in existence for some 11 year under the Ghana Developing Communities Associations, meet annually to share community experiences, enhance their capacity building processes, foster co-operation and networking to better their community lives.
The 11th CBO network was held under the theme; “building a sustainable future: coming together to end poverty and discrimination.”
