Bridging the Governed and Governor Divide in Ghana – Citizen’s Report Card

Bridging the Governed and Governor Divide in Ghana – Citizen Report Cards

Sekondi/Takoradi Metro launches Citizen’s Report Card

This story originally appeared in the Ghana Business News. 
The Global Communities, Ghana, and the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly on Wednesday launched the Citizen’s Report Card (CRC), a card to provide businesses and government with critical feedback on service delivery.
The card would also be used as an important diagnostic tool to provide citizens and government with information on prevailing standards and gaps in service delivery as well as a monitoring tool to assess improvement in the quality of service delivered overtime.

“Together with the citizens, we are taking city governance to higher levels by involving them in planning for development and creating an open channel of communication through client service units.”                                         

—Alberto Wilde, Country Director of
Global Communities Ghana

Captain Rtd Anthony Cudjoe, the Metropolitan Chief Executive, who launched the card said the city was set to transform tremendously in terms of physical growth, economic interactions and political influence and that the card would serve as guide to good governance.
He said the CRC is in use in many countries as a monitoring and accountability tool that has bridged the governed and governor divide, adding that, “In the Metropolis, we intend to use the tool in a similar vein to help improve the provision of services”.
The MCE said the vision of the metropolis was to improve the living conditions of citizens by providing sustainable socio-economic development.
The Sekondi/Takoradi CRC was an initiative by the two bodies to provide feedback to public service agencies on the strength and weaknesses of their work.
This would facilitate corrective actions in areas of water supply, solid waste, sanitation, roads, police, electricity, health services and market, which were inspired by similar exercise conducted by the World Bank in the Accra Metropolitan Assembly.
The CRC would have features such as diagnostic, accountability, benchmarking, reveal hidden cost and participatory tool.
Mr. Jacob Ntiamoh, Senior development Planning Officer said the CRC was developed to facilitate the participation of residents in decision-making about urban services provision adding that CRCs have been conducted around the world since its piloting in India in the late 1980s.
Mr. Alberto Wilde, Country Director of Global Communities Ghana said, “Together with the citizens, we are taking city governance to higher levels by involving them in planning for development and creating an open channel of communication through client service units.”
He said the Metropolis could use the CRC as a direct intervention to benefit residents, who are in need of better service, adding that, the usefulness of the CRC cannot be overemphasized.