LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) in the Archdiocese of Lilongwe, through Citizen Action for Local Government Accountability (CALGA) project, is assisting Dowa District Council in its bid to facilitate elections for new Village Development Committees (VDCs) and Area Development Committees (ADCs).
The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) in the Archdiocese of Lilongwe, through Citizen Action for Local Government Accountability (CALGA) project, is assisting Dowa District Council in its bid to facilitate elections for new Village Development Committees (VDCs) and Area Development Committees (ADCs).
VDCs and ADCs are important components of the local government structure because they work hand in hand with district councils in identifying and implementing development projects that benefit communities.
CCJP’s gesture comes when all district councils across the country are putting in place new VDCs and ADCs following the conduct of local government elections in May.
The organization held a meeting in Group Village Head Namoni in Traditional Authority (TA) Mponela to sensitise people about the role of VDCs and ADCs.
“We saw the need to educate communities here on the relevance of taking part in the elections of the new VDCs and ADCs. Our Community Journalists and Community Action Groups have also been deployed to conduct awareness campaigns in the area,” said Richard Kusseni from CCJP Lilongwe.
CALGA is a three year project which CCJP Lilongwe is implementing in Dowa and Ntchisi districts with support from Irish Aid through Dan Church Aid (DCA) to ensure that duty bearers in councils for the two districts are transparent and accountable to people through the formation of Community Action Groups (CAGs) and identification of Community Journalists (CJs).
CAGs and CJs support communities by investigating the abuse of public funds and revenue for local development projects.
GVH Namoni commended CCJP Lilongwe for the initiative, saying it enables communities to elect effective committees that must truly serve the interest of the people.
“The elected members of VDCs and ADCs should be transparent and honest when working with the council and not tolerate any kind of mismanagement of public funds,” he said.
Traditional Authority (TA) Mponela concurred with GVH Namoni, adding that duty bearers should always work with these committees when implementing development projects.
Said TA Mponela, “It is important that membes of parliament, councilors and the district council should use these committees and not outsource politically affiliated people to replace the already existing ADCs and VDCs”.
So far, Cheselino, Kambulile Ngozi, Mayani, Nkuwani Makombe, and Chiwere villages have already elected their VDCs with the help of CALGA project.
Other organizations collaborating with CCJP and Dowa District Council to set up VDCs and ADCs are National Initiative for Civic Education (NICE)Trust, Malawi Council for the Handicapped and ministries of health and gender.
The committees being elected are supposed to hold their first meetings on 4th October to map the way forward on how they will be working with Dowa District Council on development projects.