Members of a coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) pushing for transparent management of COVID-19 related funds have commended government for launching and accelerating audit on the use of funds related to the fight to contain the Coronavirus pandemic in the country.
Meeting of civil society organizations to brainstorm on ways to push gov't to be more transparent in managing COVID-19 related funds
The CSOs made the observation during a meeting at the Solomon Tandeng Muna Foundation in Yaounde Friday 23 April 2021. They were grouped under the COVID-19 Transparency and Accountability Project, CTAP, to seek ways that would push government to enhance transparency and accountability in managing COVID-19 funds.
Presentation of research findings by CTAP Cameroon Project Lead, Tang Clovis
The CTAP project which seeks not only to advocate accountability and transparency but open governance, interventions and finances targeted at combating the global health crisis in some seven selected African countries was launched in Yaounde February 2021.
It is spearheaded in Cameroon by Actions for Development and Empowerment, ADE, a not-for-profit organization that seeks to empower young people to act around issues that affect their lives in partnership with a Nigeria organization, Follow the Money – the largest social mobilization and accountability movement in Africa.
“We want to commend government for accelerating the audit because that is already a positive step in accountability…,” said Ndi Nancy Saiboh, Founder/CEO of ADE. The Follow the Money Cameroon Lead expressed the wish for government to address poor information access in the accountability of COVID-19 resources and urged authorities to make results of findings public.
“Our experience with tracking COVID-19 funds revealed a deeply-rooted systemic profiteering culture, especially in an environment that lacks accountability and civic engagement…we also observed an increase in mistrust from citizens on the delivery of palliative care…” Ndi Nancy revealed, while, expressing the wish to see wrongdoers brought to book.
Ndi Nancy, ADE founder/CEO
“…we are anxiously waiting for the results of this audit because we have noticed a lot of flaw and gaps in the management…after the result, we want to see into it that all those implicated into embezzlement are held to pay for it,” she stated.
Results of a research carried out on COVID-19 incidence and management in the country presented at the meeting talked of low participation of CSOs in COVID-19 consultation and response, inefficiency of the procurement processes for the acquisition of medical equipment and the criteria for distributing various donations as well as the poor communication strategy that makes transparency on statistics and dissemination of simple information to the public difficult.
“The imbroglio on the number of Covid-19 deaths in Cameroon does not give credibility to official sources. The recovery of the awareness campaign for propaganda and cult of personalities does not facilitate the appropriation of the messages essential for behaviour change,” partly read an interim report issued by the CSOs.
Aside ADE and Follow The Money, other members of the CSOs coalition including BudgIT, Global Integrity and Scoll Foundation, used the gathering to propose the development and implementation of a food support and drinking water distribution plan for the most vulnerable households by government in collaboration with councils, and to investigate reported cases of corruption and for legal action to taken against suspects.
It also recommended an increase in salary of healthcare workers and improvements in their working conditions as well as proposed strengthening of participation of the CSOs in monitoring the COVID-19 response plan in raising awareness and implementing measures to alleviate the economic impact of the crisis on the most vulnerable groups.
Guy Nikki Bitam, a consultant and CTAP member explained that the coalition will enable CSOs federate forces to boost communication on transparency issues.
“By so doing, we hope to respond to conspiracy theories, endless debates and enable the authorities and general public to together assess the management of COVID-19 in Cameroon,” he said, while warning that failure to adequately communicate on the virus would only result in a rise in social media speculations and conspiracy theories.
By Doh Bertrand Nua
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