Community leaders in Traditional Authority Kyungu in Karonga District have commended National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Trust for empowering them with skills to monitor the Reformed K5 billion Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to ensure transparency and accountability.
Group village head Mwanyesya I made the remarks on Wednesday at Gumi during a civic awareness session which Nice Trust conducted for the community.
“People were in the dark about the reformed K5 billion CDF projects and their guidelines, including that the community can monitor the projects they identified. We commend Nice Trust for opening our eyes,” he said.
Community member Daniel Lughali said the knowledge gained will help people to keep their eyes open during implementation of the CDF projects.
| Jordan Simeon-Phiri
“An empowered community provides checks and balances responsibly to ensure that there is no corruption when employing locals for CDF projects, selection of beneficiaries for bursaries and loans,” he said.
Lupembe community development committee assistant Lizzie Mwale said the awareness will help the community to follow the projects to ensure transparency and accountability and timely completion.
Nice Karonga district programmes officer Nathan Sakala said they wanted to empower communities to track projects in their areas.
“We hope to roll out the capacity building in the district’s six constituencies to empower the community to play a watchdog role to check corrupt activities and report immediately to relevant authorities because corruption retards development,” he said
