Entrenching Transparency and Accountability in Local Governance

—CENTAL Conducts Training For Local Officials in Grand Cape Mount County

In a society like Liberia where corruption levels are high, it is seldom you find political actors take practical steps to stop corruption from its track. But this seems to be the reality for the new leadership of Grand Cape Mount County. “We have called you here to help train members of our leadership team on anti-corruption strategies and transparency measures”, Isaac Johnson, County Administrative Officer, said at the commencement of the daylong training in Sinje City, Grand Cape Mount County.

 The training was one of several already had as part of an ongoing effort by the Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia (CENTAL) to entrench the culture of transparency, accountability and integrity across public in institutions in Liberia. 

It all happened at the Administrative Building in Sinje City, Friday, July 12, 2024, as an upshot of a formal letter of request made by the county administration led Superintendent Folley Kiatamba, to have its leadership in entirety including lawmakers, County Council members, Commissioners, Chiefs, Superintendent and other officials capacity built in mainstreaming accountability, transparency and good governance in their development priorities by CENTAL.

The request came on the backs of an initial engagement by the new County Finance Officer, Andrew Massalay, who had served CENTAL previously as County Field Officer for Grand Cape Mount County. “Before I assumed this role, I learned a lot about how to live a life of integrity whilst working for CENTAL. This is why I lobbied with my colleagues to have this session to help us gain the people’s trust by promoting transparency and accountability in our work”, Massalay said.   

During the session, County Administrator, Isaac Johnson presented highlights of development initiatives of the leadership. CENTAL’s Program Manager Atty. Gerald D. Yeakula drilled participants on the significance of understanding frameworks, prospects, and roles of stakeholders in decentralization and local administration. Gender and Inclusion Officer, Clara K. Mallah spoke on strategies, challenges, benefits and way forward for mainstreaming gender in local administration and public service delivery.

Also, Executive Director, Anderson D. Miamen drilled participants through approaches, benefits and challenges of anti-corruption and good governance in Liberia as well as the role of Civil Society and Community Based Organizations.

Throughout the sessions, major focus was placed on anti-corruption, decentralization, good governance, building trust and integrity, ethical leadership and public service delivery. Amongst many others, participant’s knowledge and understanding of key decentralization, anti-corruption, accountability, integrity and performance related issues to make informed decisions were enhanced.

At the end of the exercise, participants got deepened understanding of anti-corruption, decentralization and other topics. As a result, individual and collective commitments were made to support the fight against corruption.  Both county administration and CENTAL bore the cost of the training with CENTAL handling the provision of training module and logistics for staff while the county administration handled venue and cost of feeding for participants. “The efforts applied by the county authorities to have us here is unprecedented”, said Miamen.