HIPC Watch is not fault finding, says Zan

Tamale, October 29, GNA - Mr Samual Zan, Director of the Social Enterprise Development Foundation of West Africa (SEND), an NGO, said the involvement of his organization in the monitoring of the disbursement of the HIPC Fund is not about fault-finding.

He said the efforts of SEND are aimed at enhancing the partnership between civil society organizations and the district assemblies to ensure that HIPC-funded projects impacted positively on the lives of the people.

Mr Zan was addressing 42 District Coordinating Directors, Presiding Members and Focal NGOs in the 13 districts of the Northern Region and Kete Krachi in the Volta Region, at a three-day workshop on "Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation of HIPC Projects", in Tamale on Wednesday.

He explained that his organization has realized that many implementers of HIPC-funded projects are not very conversant with the rules and regulations of the "HIPC Manual" prepared by the Controller and Accountant-General's Department.

Mr Zan said the SEND Foundation intends to popularise the manual by providing the people with the necessary skills and knowledge on its usage to facilitate the monitoring of the HIPC funds and the projects. The SEND Foundation and the Tamale Campus of the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) are organising the forum with sponsorship from IBIS Ghana, a Danish NGO.

It is expected that at the end of the session participants would be able to enhance or intensify their operational efficiencies in the disbursement of the HIPC funds.

The participants would be taken through: "The responsibility for the poverty and HIPC accounting system", "the key features of the interim system of tracking HIPC expenditure" and "the disbursement procedures for HIPC Funds".