Civil Society Organizations in the northern region (CSOs) have taken a swipe at the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) for not attending the inauguration of the Social Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (SPEFA) forum.
The CSOs say, the attitude adopted by the assembly will derail the developmental progress of the area and accused the assembly of running away from accounting to the people they are governing.
The participants who were mainly CSOs, persons with disability, youth leaders and Social Accountability journalists’ network expressed shock about the assembly’s behavior and want them to explain their reasons beyond regional minister’s meeting with them.
Organizers of the forum, the Northern Development Society and SNV, a Netherlands base NGO, told participants that the assembly was notified for clean three days.
According to the organizers, the deputy coordinating director and budget officer were billed to attend the forum, but they informed them late hour that they were in a crunch meeting with the northern regional minister.
This excuse angered many participants who were expecting the Tamale metropolitan assembly to come and explain to the people of Tamale how they are going to use the 175 million US dollars World Bank and government of Ghana support for 46 metropolitan and municipal assemblies in Ghana.
The Assistant Project Coordinator of Northern Development Society (NORDESO), Tia Abdul-Kabiru Mahama, said his outfit could not have continued keeping participants waiting for the assembly officials and will engage them later.
The SPEFA project is expected to brooding the understanding of key participating stakeholders in the selected MMA planning and budgeting process, expenditure patterns assets management as well as monitoring and general decision-making for social public accountability (including financial) is enhanced.
