Penplusbytes connects citizens to Parliament
Penplusbytes “Connecting Citizens to Parliament” project has brought parliament to the door steps of thousands of citizens in Ghana, a report has revealed.
Advertisement
Many of the youth who are not only interested in democratic process but also technologically inclined have been enabled to provide valuable feedback on the status of various development projects ongoing within their communities to Parliament through the Project.
“Furthermore, Connecting Citizens to Parliament contributed in instilling in this youth the spirit of participation in the governance process as bedrock of any functional democracy”, the report released by Penplusbytes has said.
Penplusbytes, has over the last couple of years, been working with Ghana’s Parliament through its Government Assurance Committee (CGA), under its project, “Connecting Citizens to Parliament, to aided the Committee to effectively play its oversight role on assurances and promises made by government.
The project being implemented by Penplusbytes with financial and technical support from Open Society Initiative West Africa (OSIWA) was designed to increase interaction between the CGA and Citizens on public service delivery with particular emphasis on education, roads, power, energy, and health sectors using technology platforms.
The report indicated that the project provided the Committee members with information on selected assurances and promises made by government to effectively hold ministers accountable on promises made on the floor of Parliament.
The project has chalked significant successes both in terms of its technology innovations, enabling cost effective citizens participation in the work of Parliament while strengthening Parliament’s oversight role over the Executive.
Among others, the project helped to attain improvement in public service delivery, easy and accessible information on government assurances, enhancement of citizen awareness on government assurances, and providing a platform for citizen-based advocacy on service delivery, while putting service providers on their toes in the delivery of public services.
It has also obligated duty bearers and government to see the need to making realistic promises and fulfilling them, while providing a vibrant online and offline platform for citizens and civil society organisations (CSOs) to engage with Parliament.
“We had a big challenge communicating directly with our Member of Parliament and Parliament as whole. It was with euphoria when we got to hear about Penplusbyte’s Connecting Citizens to Parliament because it provided us with digital tools such as mobile phones, SMS, mobile app, the interactive website www.assurances.gov.gh and whatsApp in order to engage with Parliament”, Mr Ransford Kojo Manu, a teacher in Twifo Hemang, and an active user of the “Connecting Citizens to Parliament” project said.
In the course of the project implementation, the platforms created by Penplusbytes for the CGA was able to monitor 65 assurances made by Ministers, and had nearly two million subscribers to the various platforms that include SMS, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.
The platform also generated over three million feedback from citizens spread across the country reporting on various projects promised by the government with regards to the level of development.
The project also roped in citizens usually considered as “democratic outsiders” those who are generally seen as not interested in politics, public policy or general issues of governance; and educated them on the work of the CGA as well as the role of Parliament.
“Here, it is significant to note that the targeted nature of the citizens’ forums and the presence of the Members of Parliament saw the project reach much more people in remote areas than the technology platforms provided ever did, bridged the digital divide to a large extent by providing the space and platform for citizens who were not technology savvy and not online to have their voices heard on government promises and assurances”.
The reports noted that the platform provided evidence based data that informed the CGA on which government assurances to physically verify and hold Ministers who made promises to account.
The CGA, during the course of the project, visited 15 facilities across the country, including, the Ghana Gas Plant being the key amongst them to ascertain the level of work done at the plant and its contribution to the energy sector and also to end the load shedding exercise late last year.
“It is worthy to mention that based on the interaction and feedback with citizens, the CGA was able to use feedback from citizens as evidence to summon the sector Minister for Power to a public hearing to explain why the assurance to end the energy crises the nation faced as at December 2015 was not being met. The public hearing contributed to the government resolving the energy crises on time”, the report said.
Through the project, there was a revelation, that the yet to be completed 1,000 capacity Maternity and Children’s Block at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in the Ashanti Region had been ongoing for the past 41 years since its commencement.
The project, has enabled the CGA to become the only Committee whose work and public hearing is streamed live online for citizen to participate in their work thereby leading the way in opening up Parliament for citizen engagement, the report explained.
The project implementers are happy to announce the adoption of the various online tools by Members of Parliament (MP) not only in their work at the committee but using it as a tool to engage with members of their constituencies.
“For the first time in the history of Ghana’s Parliament and in fact for a number of countries in Africa, the “Connecting Citizens to Parliament” project provided online platform which gave participatory opportunities for citizens to engage with Parliament through CGA.
Over five million Ghanaians send in feedback across multiple project channels including website, SMS, Mobile App, WhatsApp, social media, “Public Fora” and to a limited extend radio”.
Elated about the success of the Project, Mr Kwami Ahiabenu II, Executive Director of Penplusbytes said, “the project went a long way to provide citizens with a greater voice to input in Ghana’s democratic governance process through vibrant interaction with Ghana’s Parliament.
More importantly we are in a better position not only to scale up this project to other committees of Parliament but also to other Parliaments in Africa”
Mr Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah, Chair of Government Assurance Committee of Parliament and Member of Parliament for Ho West Constituency, said “the Committee on Government Assurances was established to play an oversight role of the Executive arm of government in Ghana but we were faced with the challenge of interacting effectively with citizens and getting their valuable feedback on project delivery statuses.
You can understand our excitement when we started the Connecting Citizens to Parliament Project in partnership with Penplusbytes to implement an innovative mechanism of connecting citizens to Parliament, using new digital technologies including SMS, an online portal, a Mobile App and WhatsApp.
Our work was more efficient, as for the first time ever, we had a dedicated website on which citizens could report on projects within their communities and reach out to us via an integrated media system about other governance issues that they had concerns with”.
He said the project also equipped Committee members with technology, information and knowledge management skills’.
He called on all stakeholders to support the Committee to sustain the success chalked by “Connecting Citizens to Parliament” project to ensure a continuous interaction between Parliament and citizens".