Integrity Watch Liberia Trains 46 Persons In Grand Bassa County
PHOTO: Integrity Watch Liberia at Bassa Youth Caucus in Buchanan trained 46 persons to use a digital platform called TALKAY App to report corruption
By King Brown, Sarwahking@gmail.com
BUCHANAN, Liberia- As part of efforts to fight against rampant corruption and promote transparency and accountability in Liberia, Integrity Watch Liberia, a national Civil Society Organization has trained 46 persons from diverse youth organizations in Grand Bassa County to join the fight against eliminating corruption in Liberia.
The youth organizations are members of the Bassa Youth Caucus which is the umbrella organization for all youth groups in Grand Bassa County.
The two days interactive training which started Friday and ended on Saturday, November 4, 2023, was held in the conference hall at the Bassa Youth Caucus on the Fairgrounds in Buchanan.
Speaking to reporters at the end of the training exercise, the Executive Director of Integrity Watch Liberia Harold Aidoo said those youth groups were trained to use the new Anti-Corruption reporting digital platform called TALKAY to report any acts of corruption at the county levels.
Apart from that, he said they also acquainted participants with the laws, policy and mandate that govern the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC).
According to Mr. Aidoo, the 46 persons who were trained will go in the various communities, recruit and train other passionate Liberians on how to use the app to report corruption. He said their goal is to see a corruption free society.
He mentioned that the objective for reporting to the platform is for LACC to take immediate action against people undermining democracy for their own personal benefit.
Mr. Aidoo said it saddens him that citizens are unable to feel the impact of the national budget only because of corruption.
He said corruption has long undermined Liberia’s democracy and its economy thus robbing the Liberian people funds for public services.
According to him, the national budget has zero impact on the lives of the citizens; only because people choose to steal at the detriment of the ordinary citizens.
“Most times when the budget is passed and when it comes to the implementation of the budget, at the end of every fiscal year, if you really measure the impact of the budget on the citizens is almost zero; the actual citizens are not able to feel the impact of the budget,” he said.
He said this prompted them to develop the TALKAY app to help fight corruption so that citizens can feel the impact of the national budget.
“We look to strengthen the capacity of Anti-Corruption actors in the County so that they are able to report and prevent issues around corruption. For the first time, LACC can sit at their offices and see all the corruption happening across the country and they are taking actions. We told participants about a digital platform we developed called TALKAY that citizens use to report corruption because we want to achieve a corruption free society” He added.
The Executive Director said the lack of medicines in public healthcare facilities and schools are challenged to operate because corruption is on the increase in Liberia.
He said the fight against corruption would help to address the many challenges Liberians are faced with on a daily basis and advanced development for the betterment of the citizens.
Mr. Harold Aidoo said with support from the United Nation Development Program (UNDP), they have been operating in Liberia for two years working on fiscal transparency, decentralization and natural resource governance, something he says is immensely helping them to contribute to developments and advancement of good governance in Liberia.
He disclosed they are working towards strengthening the capacity of Anti-corruption actors in this Country to join hands with integrity institutions in combating and preventing corruption.
According to him, the direct involvement of these youth organizations at the county levels will help to foster transparency and accountability.
He further said: “If you look at the history of our country, one of our biggest challenges while development has been lacking for over 170 years is because of corruption, the reason while the health sector is in decay no medicines and resources to do many other things is because of corruption so, we believed by fight corruption we would be able to address many of the issues and advance democracy and developments altogether”.
He said he hopes they used the knowledge gained to go out and educate other people on how to use the Anti-Corruption digital platform to buttress the efforts of the LACC in dealing with people who are accused of robbing the public of funds needed to provide vital services as such education, health and others.
Mr. Aidoo said the app is a mobile platform that is mainly used for reporting all forms of corruption, therefore, he urged young people to use the knowledge acquired and contribute towards the fight against corruption at their schools and communities to enhance transparency in the county.
Integrity Watch Liberia is working in three counties across Liberia, Grand Cape Mount, Bomi and Grand Bassa Counties battling corruption within both the public and private sectors of Liberian society.