The Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) and Wassa East District Assembly (WEDA) have been adjudged the overall best districts among eight (8) Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) after scoring the highest points in compliance in infrastructure data disclosure.
Each had a score of 37 which represents 58.21% of the overall disclosure score of 67 Construction Sector Transparency (CoST) Infrastructure Data Standards (IDS).
This was contained in the Second Assurance Report on eight projects implemented by eight procuring entities such as MMDAs in the Western Region put together by the CoST Sekondi-Takoradi.
According to the report, Effia-Kwesimintsim Municipal Assembly (EKMA) scored the least with a score of 18, which represents 26.87 of the overall data point of 67 IDS.
In terms of Proactive Disclosure, WEDA was ranked 1st with an overall score of 22, representing 55% of the Proactive Data Point whereas Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal Assembly (TNMA) disclosed the least Proactive Data Point with a score of 8 representing 20%.
Ahanta West Municipal Assembly (AWMA) ranked 1st in Accuracy of Proactive Disclosure with a score of 21 out of the 40 data points, meaning that 21 proactive disclosure in the public domain were accurate.
Meanwhile, results from the Reactive Disclosure indicated an average of 50.46% was recorded by the 8 MMDAs with STMA emerging 1st with a Reactive Score of 19 representing 70.37% of reactive disclosure data point of 27.
In terms of cost and time overrun, only Ahanta West Municipal Assembly (AWMA) was able to avoid both time and cost overruns.
The 8 MMDAs that were considered in the research included Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assemblies, Effia-Kwesimintsim Municipal Assembly, Ahanta West Municipal Assembly, Nzema East Municipal Assembly (NEMA), Mpohor District Assembly (MDA), Shama District Assembly (SDA) and Wassa East District Assembly.
Speaking at the launching ceremony of the Report which was on the theme, “A New Dawn in Infrastructure Transparency, Citizen Participation and Accountability”, Mr Isaac Aidoo, CoST Program’s Manager declared STMA and WEDA as the highest overall best procurement entities with overall highest proactive and reactive score.
He explained that per the CoST IDS, the Assemblies were expected to make information on infrastructure initiatives available to the general public through a sign post at construction sites, websites, social media pages, notice boards and all other available realistic mediums accessible to the general public.
He said each Assembly was required to score or proactively disclose 40 data points at key stages of the project cycle including identification, preparation, competition, procurement and implementation while 27 points were required to be reactively disclosed to meet the standard.
With Proactive Disclosure, the Assembly was voluntarily expected to comply with compliance in infrastructure data disclosure principle per the CoST Infrastructure Data Standard while with the reactive disclosure, MMDAs responded to principles of CoST Infrastructure Data Standard after a prompt by the organization in charge of the research.
Mr Mathew Somia, Lead Researcher of the Project and Lecturer, Department of Construction, Takoradi Technical University (TTU) also disclosed that the advent of COVID-19 delayed the publication and researchers also faced a challenge with accessibility of information from stakeholders and agencies.
“We were supposed to launch the project in early 2020 but due to COVID-19, our initial plan was affected, also accessing information from Procurement Entities (PEs), Consultants and Contractors was a challenge”, he stressed.
He pointed out that the Assurance Report generated on a year-to-year basis by CoST Sekondi-Takoradi was expected to inform policy formulation, social accountability and contribute to the existing body of literature in academia.
Story: Kwame Offei
