The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) in the Nabdam District has held a forum to school stakeholders on social auditing.

The forum, which engaged chiefs, community members and opinion leaders and other stakeholders to deliberate on the need for the various communities to identify Paramount projects to them and how they could support government through the district assembly to address these needs.

Mr Augustine Akugri, the Nabdam District Director of the NCCE addressing the participants, said social auditing was not meant to find faults in leaders, but to draw the people closer to their leaders to ensure accountability and transparency in the handling of community funds and associated projects.

He said governments all over the world were confronted with demands from the citizenry to account to them because the people were becoming more informed and added that social auditing guided them to demand accountability from leaders.

Mr Akugri added that social auditing was a tool, where government institutions planned and measured economic activities in their various communities of operations to ensure that there was prudent management of finances and that communities actually got projects that were dear to their hearts.

He commended the European Union (EU) for its continuous support to the NCCE and appealed to the EU and other donors to continue to support the commission to carry out its programmes.

Madam Agnes Anamoo, the District Chief Executive for Nabdam said the programme would help the Assembly to identify the needs of the people so as to plan towards achieving them, adding that it would guide the Assembly to prioritise the projects and properly address the needs of the communities.

Madam Anamoo added that the District Assembly was making frantic efforts to ensure that the district got a hospital to reduce the burden on the people from travelling distances to either Bawku or Bolgatanga to access healthcare services, which could have been provided by a hospital at the district level.

The DCE advised the people to consider their choice of development projects that would positively impact on their children and future generations and urged them to actively participate in such development programmes when they were organised to enable the assembly to address them.

A social auditing was undertaken at the end of the programme, where the stakeholders identified a good source of drinking water as the most paramount need of the Nangodi community, and a district hospital among others.

A committee comprising the Assemblyman for the Nangodi Electoral Area, representatives of the Nangodi women’s groups, persons with disability, traditional rulers, youth groups and officials of the NCCE was formed to draw up an action plan on how to achieve the priorities that they have identified.