CARL briefs journalists on $125 grant to councils
Civil society organization Center For Accountability and the Rule Of Law Sierra Leone (CARL-SL) on Tuesday 1st April 2014 briefed journalists about the $125 grant project given to all local councils across the country last year 2013 with the theme “Accountability and Citizens Participation in Local Council”
Speaking at the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) head office at the Harry Yansaneh Memorial hall, Executive Director of CARL-SL Mr. Ibrahim Tommy said the last year his organization in collaboration with Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) signed a project worth $125 grant to assist local councils across the country to promote transparency and the to also promote citizens’ participation in local council processes.
According to Tommy citizens have the right to inform their councilors about issues that are happening in their various wards “There should be a good number of citizen’s participation in local councils. There are 390 wards in the country and every ward committee has 10 members that make up the committee,” said Tommy.
He also said that the project was to be completed by February this year but due to some reasons it has been postponed to end of April this month.
Mr. Augustine Gulama the project officer said the project is been implemented in six districts such as Bombali, Bo, Kenema, Western Urban and Rural areas and Pujehun district respectively.
The aim of the project was to allow people to sound their opinions about the operations of councils “When the project started it was meant help people add their voices to the operations of councils,” he said adding that the voices of people could help the councils to understand many things.
He said they noticed that there are no notice boards erected on walls to help the people to know what is happening in their wards “but today there are so many erected boards in various districts, ward committee meetings for members of each ward are also held now,” he said.
He said 16 notice boards erected in Bombali and Bo has 21 notice boards erected. While Western Rural has 15 notice boards erected and Western Urban 13 notice board erected already. He said in Kenema all notice board have already been erected. He also said although they have done a lot of things, but yet still they have challenges like the update of notices.
By: Princess Pearce
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