By Norbert Tambalamtuwa Mzembe<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Judicial Vicar of the Diocese of Karonga, Reverend Father\nDoctor Steven Bulambo, says the Catholic Church, though the Justice and Peace\nDesk, will not relent to advocate for justice in the society by ensuring that\ncommunity members equally benefit from development projects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Father Bulambo said this on Friday during interface meeting,\nbetween Community Action Groups (CAGs), community members and their elected\nrepresentatives (Members of Parliament (MPs) and Ward Councillors), on the\ndissemination Annual Investment Plan (AIP) at Wasambo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor people in the community to fully benefit from development\nprojects, they must work in harmony, in a transparent and accountable manner, without\nstealing or plundering public funds,” exhorted Father Bulambo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking earlier during the meeting, former Wasambo ADC\nChairperson, Barclare Gowa Nyasulu, said most projects in the area have stalled\nbecause of misallocation (diversion) of funds and politicization of development\nprojects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese challenges arise because community members are not\naware of how these funds ought to be utilized, because they do not know the\namount of funds allocated and timeframe for completion of projects making it\nalmost impossible to track the funds,\u201d Said Nyasulu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He cited projects under Constituency Development Funds (CDF),\nDistrict Development Fund (DDF), and Local Development Fund (LDF), where funds\nare not utilized for their intended purpose. Some of the projects which are yet\nto be completed include construction of VIP toilets at Luromo, construction of\nZgeba Community Day Secondary School and Thawiro Health Center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nyasulu, pleaded with duty bearers to incorporate community\nmembers in planning and implementation of projects, so that funds should not be\ndiverted to other projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his reaction, Member of Parliament for Karonga South\nConstituency, Honourable Uchizi Vunda Mkandawire, assured the community members\nthat he is ready to discharge his duties in a transparent and accountable\nmanner while empowering Area Development Committee (ADC) to be fully\nresponsible for development planning and implementation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He, however, was quick to mention that transparency and accountability\nshould not only be demanded from MPs and councilors, but it should be the duty\nof everyone including traditional leaders, development committees and civil\nsociety organisations and community members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ward Councilor for Khwawa Ward, Mokachi Katunga Chirambo\ncommended the observation of the beneficiaries of the projects and encouraged\nthem to be partners and actors in development and not spectators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The interface meeting was initiated by the Justice and Peace\nDesk of the Diocese of Karonga under the Citizen Action in Local Government Accountability\n(CALGA). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Project Officer for CALGA project, Vincent Bwinga, advised\ncommunities and duty bearers in Karonga to follow approved development plans when\nimplementing projects in their areas. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Norbert Tambalamtuwa Mzembe Judicial Vicar of the Diocese of Karonga, Reverend Father Doctor Steven Bulambo, says the Catholic Church, though the Justice and Peace Desk, will not relent to advocate for justice in the society by ensuring that community members equally benefit from development projects. Father Bulambo said this on Friday during interface meeting, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}