Enhance Civic Participation and Accountability (GHWAE0005)

Commitment ID

GHWAE0005

Commitment Title

Enhance Civic Participation and Accountability

Problem

The Wassa Amenfi East Municipal is not exempt from the requirements of the Local Governance Act (LGA) 2016 (Act 936), Public Financial Management Act (Act 921), National Development Planning Commission Act 1994, (Act 479), and National Development Planning System Regulations 2016 (L.I. 2232), which mandate a bottom-up approach to development planning, budgeting, and fee fixing. Despite the aforementioned constitutional provisions, only identifiable groups of citizens and stakeholders have been allowed to participate in local governance, preventing the majority of the population from exercising their civic rights to participate in and be involved in decisions that have an impact on their own lives.

Because of this, residents believe that the Assembly's growth plans and annual budget do not give their demands first priority. Since their needs and goals are not realized, this has a detrimental effect on their quality of life.

Despite the Wassa Amenfi East's greatest efforts to engage the populace and promote transparent and accountable governance, the Assembly makes minimal effort to monitor, share, and gather feedback on its programs and projects.

Due to this situation, the majority of the citizens have very little or no access to the right information in the day-to-day administration of the Assembly which frowns on the principle of accountability and transparency hence their loss of trust and confidence in the authorities to meet their needs.

Status quo

The Wassa Amenfi East Municipal Assembly was established by legislative instrument, and it is the overall/highest political and administrative authority with the authority to "exercise deliberative, legislative and executive functions" planning and budgeting, "promote and control development," and other duties (see section 12 subsection 1 and 2 of Act 2016(Act 936) as mentioned above).

The OGP goals and objectives are directly aligned with section 40 of Act 936, which mandates that the Municipal Assembly "allow the citizens and other stakeholders in the Municipal to participate effectively in the Municipal Assembly and the sub-Municipal of the Municipal Assembly."

The Municipal Assembly in fulfilling this constitutional mandate has been undertaking critical measures that create the enabling environment for its citizens to fully and effectively participate in its programs/activities. Notable among them are ‘the People’s Forum, Town Hall Meetings, Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting and revenue mobilization, Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation, Accountability and Transparency mechanisms, among others. These approaches were adopted by the Assembly in the development of its Municipal Medium Term Development Plan (2022-2025).

However, the current client service channels are not well integrated, which makes it difficult for citizens to provide feedback on the results and impacts of assembly projects and activities within the municipality.

Action

This commitment is targeted at creating opportunities and civic space for citizens to effectively participate in the governance processes by enhancing their access to information and ensuring accountability and transparency.

Expected Results:
1. Empowered citizens to enhance responsive, inclusive, participatory, and representative decision-making at all levels.
2. Build citizens' trust and confidence in the allocation and utilization of resources.
3. Enhanced Municipal sub structures operations for effective citizens participation
4. Reduce citizens‟ apathy in the Assembly’s programs and activities, especially in the payment of taxes and rates for development.

The overall objective of this commitment is to give citizens access to information and also provide opportunities to effectively participate in the governance process.

How will the commitment contribute to solving the public problem described above?

In order to promote effective citizen participation and create citizens' access to information, the commitments will serve as a guide for the Municipality in achieving sustainable development through effective stakeholder/citizens participation in decision-making and hence empower them to demand accountability and transparent governance from authorities.

Expected Outputs:
1. Decentralized town hall meetings at zonal levels to enhance participation.
2. Enhanced public sensitization on their roles and responsibilities in the local governance system.
3. Stakeholder consultative meetings to solicit inputs on the adoption of e-government and e-services with public-facing departments/units, businesses, citizen groups, civil society, and traditional authority conducted.
4. Strengthen and equipped substructures to enhance citizens' participation in revenue mobilization.
5. Enhanced access to information, especially on Assembly’s revenue and expenditure.

Expected Outcomes:
1. Enhanced citizens' access to information.
2. Effective citizen participation in Assembly’s planning and budgeting processes.
3. Functional substructures for effective stakeholders’ participation.
4. Enhanced client service delivery.
5. Improved capacity of stakeholders to use disclosed data to conduct independent social audits on public expenditure, projects, and programmes.

What long-term goal as identified in your Open Government Strategy does this commitment relate to?

The long-term goal of this commitment is for the authority to ensure that all citizens, regardless of where they live or what status they may have, have the chance to participate in decision-making and access information without any bottlenecks. This could be done by working together to develop commitments that provide citizens access to information so they can hold duty authorities responsible for their stewardship to provide quality services to the people.

Primary Policy Area

Civic Space, Fiscal Openness, Inclusion, Open Data, Right to Information, Social Accountability

Primary Sector

Cross-sectoral, Public Services (general), Science & Technology

What OGP value is this commitment relevant to?