Obuasi: NCCE Inaugurates Social Audit Oversight Committee At Binsere

The Obuasi office of the National Commission for Civic Education has inaugurated a Seven (7) member committee at Binsere, a suburb of the Obuasi Municipality.

The Committee has an immediate responsibility to come out with workable plans to implement a community self help project in the Binsere Community. The Members of the Committee include the Queenmother of Binsere Obahemaa Akua Foriwaa, 5 members of the community and the Municipal Director, NCCE, Mr. Sylvester Yaw Asamoah.

Before the inauguration of the Committee, the Obuasi Municipal Director of NCCE, Mr. Sylvester Yaw Asamoah talked about the essence of the Social Auditing Engagements. He said it is the process whereby citizens are engaged in accessing the performance of public policies and influence the process and outcome of these policies and the correspond budget allocation.

He again opined that the purpose of the engagement was in fulfilment of Chapter 6 of Article 35 (6) d of the 1992 Constitution which talks about the powers given to the citizenry through decentralization. He said " this provision in our constitution gives all of us the powers to contribute to the development of the country".

Mr. Asamoah also bemoaned the level of apathy on the part of the people towards developmental projects in their communities. He said gone are the days when the people left development in the hands of the Government. This tendacy he said would not inure to the forward march of the country. "A time has come for people to participate in the development of their communities".

The NCCE director said Social Auditing is geared towards people's development of 'Community self help projects' in which the people directly contribute to community initiated projects, fund it and own it.

At a time, where Government is burdened with huge expenditure with limited resources, it is important for the citizenry to also start a project and together contribute to fund it.

Mrs. Margaret Owusu Mensah, a Deputy Director who represented the Municipal Chief Executive for Obuasi, also added her voice to calls on the people to bring back the communal spirit which has been non existent currently.

She said ' Self help initiatives/projects ' properly implemented will be the catalyst to the country's development. It is also necessary to relieve the burden on Government to be able two tackle other developmental projects.

She again encouraged the people of the Binsere Community to initiate a project which they can finance themselves allowing Government to intervene at some point in time.

At the end of an open forum, the people of Binsere unanimously selected to build a modern water closet toilet facility which will be financed by themselves. They will determine how to mobilize resources for the facility.