Local Councils, CSOs Agree to Cement Relationship

Moyo Moyo - pic by Hastings Jimani

District councils and civil society organizations (CSOs) have agreed to rebuild and cement their relationships as their interest remains on serving the interest of the common man.

This was agreed during a two-day councils-CSOs interface organized by Citizen Engagement Committee (CEC) in Liwonde.

Chairperson of Blantyre Civil Society Network Stanley Moyo said councils should understand that CSOs are their partners in development and not enemies.

“Disagreements will always be there but we should be quick to resolve them and resume working together in developing our respective districts,” said Moyo.

Lilongwe District Commissioner, Dr. Lawford Palani, said such engagements are crucial as members from both sides reflect their misunderstandings and resolve them mutually.

“Dialogues should continue, constructive criticisms are welcome and we always appreciate and enjoy the support you render to us,” said Palani.

He also said as Lilongwe they are trying as much as possible to detach developmental projects including Governance to Enable Service Delivery (GESD) projects from politics.

CEC Team leader Gray Kalindekafe said inputs from CSOs add value to planning, implementation and enhance legitimacy and quality of public projects.

Kalindekafe also urged the CSOs to make absolute monitoring on projects as some completed projects are functional and why they are not used is not known.

“We as CSOs, we should strive to investigate, document and report reasons for non-functionality of such projects and let the public know the reasons,” said Kalindekafe.

The meeting was attended by council officials and CSO leaders from Mulanje, Chiradzulu, Dedza, Lilongwe, Blantyre, Thyolo and Chikwawa.

CEC is supported by Governance to Enable Service Delivery (GESD) in partnership with National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC).

Read 1441 times
Login to post comments
Go to top
JSN Time 2 is designed by JoomlaShine.com | powered by JSN Sun Framework