Project injects K647m to promote services in councils
The Local Government Accountability and Performance (Lgap) programme has planned to invest about K647 million in promoting good governance and quality service delivery in 28 local councils in the country.
Lgap local government manager Mavuto Mkandawire said this last week when the institution interacted with civil society organisations (CSOs) in the Northern Region to brief them on the expansion of the Lgap catchment area from eight councils to 28.
Information shared also included how the CSOs can access grants from Lgap to promote service delivery, following financial support that it has received from UKaid andUSaid.
Mkandawire said Lgap will be awarding grants to CSOs that qualify for such funding to enable them reach communities with services that complement government’s efforts.
He said each CSO will be entitled to K38 million, but Lgap has a package of about K647 million that is expected to be spent between December 2019 and August 2021.
“We are supporting councils in a number of ways. One of them is provision of grants to CSOs so that they can complement government efforts in service delivery to communities,” said Mkandawire.
He called on CSOs to come up with good proposals that can be properly implemented in communities to help improve welfare of people.
National Initiative for Civic Education (Nice) Trust resource mobilisation officer John Chipeta said such programmes make local councils more responsive and accountable since communities become empowered.
He said service delivery in turn improves and communities benefit from public resources.
“We have also seen that local councils are engaging more the local structures such as village committees and area development committees which to us as Nice is one of the areas we have been seeing as lacking as far as strengthening local structures is concerned.
“So, Lgap is doing a commendable job in as far as strengthening these local structures is concerned,” said Chipeta.
Lgap is a five-year project (2016-2021) designed to support the Government of Malawi in the implementation of the National Decentralisation Policy and strengthen local governance.
Its mandate is to support the decentralisation process and the functionality of local government structures, systems and processes, with focus on improving local government performance and transparency, among others.
