Audit Service whips up public interest in CITIZENEYE APP

Issues of poor infrastructure, bribery, fraud, mismanagement and public irregularities are of concern to citizens.

Through the “CITIZENSEYE APP” introduced in 2019, the Audit Service, has been receiving such reports from the public.

However, due to the decline in the reporting of issues, the Audit Service is encouraging the public to speak up and make their voices heard all the time through the APP to help promote accountability in all sectors of the economy.

Apart from reporting of issues on the “CITIZENSEYE” APP, there are specific questions that are asked under five categories of issues that one may report to the Auditor General. These are; education, health, environment, infrastructure and agriculture. Also, the APP allows citizens to rate public service delivery.

Jude Danbo, a member of the technical team of the CITIZENSEYE APP, mentioned that new features like access to different languages would soon be introduced to make the APP more user-friendly.

According to him, much focus is on improving feedback mechanism to help people trace issues that have been reported and how they have been resolved.

“A lot of issues have been reported from most parts of the country, however the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions have recorded majority of these cases. We are hoping more people would be familiar with the “CITIZENSEYE APP” as we continue with our engagements with Ghanaians about the easy-to-use digital tool which is helping to promote transparency and accountability in the public sector,” Jude Danbo emphasized.

Objectives of the APP include the follow-up on reported cases of corruption and abuses of the public purse and identifying areas of public interest and prioritizing performance audits.

The APP was developed in collaboration with the German Development Corporation (GIZ) to empower citizens to be able to provide feedback to the Auditor-General on the implementation of government policies, report issues and share information on issues of concern.

The Director of the Performance Audit Unit at the Ghana Audit Service, Roberta Ntim said that the CITIZENSEYE APP also enables the service to plan and build human resource capacities to improve service delivery.

“The Audit Service conducted a lot of audit operations because of the reported cases we received from concerned citizens and this is helping us to prioritize the audits for the preceding years. I would therefore entreat everyone to report pressing issues they may face in public institutions or their respective communities. Also, do not forget to rate services rendered to you in these institutions. The tool is one key solution to citizens’ participation in auditing,” Mrs Ntim stressed.

To assess the performance of the APP and also share recommendations for it to have a greater impact on the citizens, the Audit Service and its partner, the German Development Corporation (GIZ) engaged stakeholders to explore ways of improving their involvement in the audit processes.

The Ghana Audit Service is forging a common alliance among stakeholders to offer citizens a special opportunity to provide information on services and issues relating to public service delivery.

The mobile technology APP which runs on smart phones and other computer devices is the first of its kind for a Supreme Audit Institution in Africa.

The post Audit Service whips up public interest in CITIZENEYE APP first appeared on 3News.

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