Twenty-eight traditional leaders and immediate past elected assembly and unit committee members in the Obuasi municipality have completed a day’s training session on social accountability, aimed at promoting good governance in the public offices.

It was also meant to encourage citizen participation in local governance and strengthen the credibility of local authorities to promote local government accountability.

The training which was organized by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) with support from the European Union.

It also held a similar training for political leaders, youth and assembly officials, women and persons with disabilities (PWDs).

Topics discussed at the programme included an overview of CDD-Ghana /EU accountability engagements, governance and democracy, and social accountability.

Mr Edward Ampratwum, a Senior Research Officer at CDD-Ghana who led the discussions emphasized that it was the desire of CDD to ensure improvements in citizen participation in local governance, hence the training programmes.

He urged participants to go back and actively engage themselves in the promotion of the development in their various communities.

The Research Officer observed that community initiative was very critical in ensuring positive local development, as well as addressing local development challenges.

Mr Ampratwum stressed the need for the chiefs, assembly and unit committee members to co-exist peacefully, adding “Assembly members need not compete with their chiefs in their communities; rather they should co-exist to promote local development”.

Nana Peprah Abu Bonsra, Odikro of Nhyieso and a participant, suggested that chiefs should be invited to Assembly meetings as observers since they constituted an essential component in local governance.

He further called on the government to consider the payment of monthly remuneration to assembly members to help entice quality, intelligent and knowledgeable people into the assemblies to promote meaningful development in the country.