Miss Lina Elinam Bensah, Keta Municipal Director of the Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has called on the people of the Abutiakope to take the development of their community into their own hands.

She said the bottom-up development was the best and that they should not wait on the Municipal Assembly and the Central Government for the development of their community.

Addressing residents during a social auditing programme in the community, Miss Bensah said social auditing aimed to provide a platform for discourse among citizens and office-bearers on planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of development projects and programmes.

“It seeks to promote community ownership of developmental projects and policies, increase awareness of the operations of the Local Government, and empower the citizenry to demand accountability from duty-bearers.”

“Also, opportunities are also given to persons outside government operations to influence policy-making, implementation and evaluation,” she said.

The Municipal Director reminded the gathering of the pandemic situation the country was in saying, “we are not yet back to normal times” and asked that they should continue to wear their face masks and observe other safety protocols to stay safe.

Mr. Oral-Robert Amenyo, Deputy Volta Regional Director, NCCE educated the community through needs identification and prioritisation after which, building a toilet at the beach topped the list.

The community listed as part of their pressing needs, electricity extension, water extension, an access road to the beach.

A five-member Social Auditing Committee was elected and inaugurated to pursue the implementation process and also to provide feedback to the larger community on progress being made.

The committee members assured of their commitment to work hard and selflessly to finish the project on time.

Togbui Katsiko IV, the Chairman for the occasion called for peace and unity from all as they embarked on their development journey for success.

Mr Promise Kofi Baccah, Assemblyman for the area thanked the Commission for choosing Abutiakope among all other communities in the Municipality saying they had been empowered as a community to take up more self- development projects in the future.