Anti-corruption committees trained to monitor govt projects through social audits

KISUMU, Kenya Sep 21 – The government has stepped up efforts to involve citizens in monitoring public projects through social audits as part of renewed measures to strengthen accountability and combat corruption at the grassroots.

Speaking in Kisumu on Monday, Acting Director of the National Anti-Corruption Campaign Steering Committee (NACCSC) Trufosa Achar said the government was building the capacity of civilian oversight committees to enable citizens to scrutinise projects funded through public resources.

Achar spoke during a five-day training that brought together members of County Anti-Corruption Civilian Oversight Committees from Kisumu, Siaya and Busia counties.

The training provided participants with an opportunity to share experiences, understand changes in the legal and policy framework and undertake practical social audits of government projects.

“We want to hear citizen voices with regards to how these projects have benefited them,” Achar said.

She said the committees would also help communicate the impact of government investments while documenting concerns raised by communities over projects being implemented in their areas.

Achar said the committees would conduct social audits of both national and county government projects to establish whether they are delivering the intended benefits to local communities.

She said the civilian oversight structure had been established in all 47 counties, with members drawn from local communities and sub-counties.

“We have County Anti-Corruption Civilian Oversight Committees in all the 47 counties,” she said.

Achar said the community-based composition of the committees placed them in a strategic position to capture concerns raised by residents because members live within the areas where government projects are being implemented.

“They are ordinary Kenyans that are representing wananchi, that are residing with wananchi, and are able to hear wananchi voices,” she said.

The programme will also contribute to research on the prevalence of corruption in Kenya by collecting views from citizens and oversight committees on measures that could strengthen the fight against the vice.

Kisumu County Commissioner Mohamed Mwabudzo said combating corruption required closer collaboration between the government and citizens through civic education and community participation.

He said the training would equip committee members with practical skills to conduct social audits before sharing the knowledge with other residents in their respective counties.

“It would not be possible to fight corruption without getting the civilians on the ground to discuss and do a lot of civic education on how bad corruption is,” Mwabudzo said.

Mwabudzo said Kenyans had repeatedly called for a corruption-free country, noting that corruption had been linked to challenges affecting public services and development.

The training is part of the second phase of a governance programme being implemented by the Office of the Attorney General and the State Department for Justice, Human Rights and Constitutional Affairs in partnership with the German development agency GIZ.

The programme is expected to continue with similar engagements in other parts of the country, bringing together civilian oversight committees from different counties for training, experience sharing and social audits.

The initiative seeks to strengthen citizen participation in public accountability by giving communities a direct role in monitoring government projects and raising concerns over how public resources are utilised.