Over GHC300,000 which were disbursed to five District Assemblies in the Central to scale up their advocacy program that was geared towards changing behavior in 2,500 communities has been recalled by the funding organization, UNICEF.

The beneficiary Assemblies namely; Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese, Ajumako-Enyan-Esiem, Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa, Gomoa East and Assin South, kasapafmonline.com learnt, could not meet the timelines for their own planned program, hence, the recall of the money by the donor agency.

Each of the five Assemblies was given GHC38,850 to address issues associated with household water saftey in 50 communities.

In each of the 50 communities, the Assemblies were expected to train ten volunteers to assist in rolling out the planned program.

The volunteers were further expected to also educate other community members.

By the time the money was disbursed to the district by the Central Regional Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate, they had only three months to complete their scheduled program.

Meanwhile, they needed more time, at least six months to complete the agreed project.

By failing to the meet the agreed timelines for the project, UNICEF had not option than to recall the money back to its coffers.

Central Regional Minister, Kweku Rickets-Hagan, commenting on the issue, Thursday, at a two-day capacity building workshop organized by the Parliamentary Press Corps at Cape Coast said the situation was worrying.

“It is sad to note that the districts could not use the funds to complete all planned activities on schedule and therefore, UNICEF had to take back all unused funds from the Districts”, he noted.

Martin Amevor, Central Regional Director for Environmental Health and Sanitation, told kasapafmonline.com that all was not lost since the five affected districts have another change to access the fund from UNICEF.

“When UNICEF transfers any money into your account, you have a maximum of six months to utilize it. If you are unable to use it based on the action plan or program you have agreed with them, you return it or re-program it for another six months”.

“At the expiration of one year, if you are unable to use the money, what you have to do is to return the chunk of the money back to UNICEF and you re-program it and they will return it back to you”.

“If you look at the time and activities that were scheduled by the districts, we knew very well that they could not do effectively do it. So, although the money has been returned to UNICEF, there is another opportunity for them to access and this time, they will have more time execute all their planned programs”, he explained.