Consult community members before awarding HIPC Projects

Tamale, Oct 31, GNA- Participants at the end of a three-day "Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation of HIPC Projects" Workshop in Tamale on Friday called on the government to consult communities that are to benefit from HIPC projects before contracts are awarded. Projects specifications must also be made available to people in the communities to enable them to monitor contractors executing the projects.

Mr Jagri Y. Joshua, Presiding Member of the Saboba/Chereponi District Assembly who made the call in an interview with the GNA, said for the communities to benefit from HIPC projects, they should be able to monitor and caution contractors whose works are shoddy. The SEND Foundation and the Tamale Campus of the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) organised the forum with sponsorship from IBIS Ghana, a Danish NGO.

The participants were taken through: "The responsibility for the poverty and HIPC accounting system", "the key features of the interim system of tracking HIPC expenditure" and "the disbursement procedures for HIPC Funds".

Mr Joshua advised his colleagues to share the knowledge and skills they had acquired at the workshop with their staff. Mr Abukari Issifu, Project Officer of "Tiyumtaba" Integrated Development Association, a local NGO based in the Nanumba District of the Northern Region, said the workshop had provided him with knowledge and skills to monitor HIPC Funds and HIPC-funded projects effectively.