Authorities in Nkhotakota have lamented poor performance of some Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) in areas of reporting and signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with relevant offices at the inception of various projects in the district.
It was revealed during an engagement meeting between the Civil Society Organization (CSOs), NGO Regulatory Authority (NGORA) and the council officials.
The council's Director of Planning and Development, Davis Kavalo, while noting slight improvement in areas of collaboration, acknowledges shortfalls in areas of project progress reporting by some NGOs.
“We have experienced a slight improvement in collaboration between the council, CSOs and other relevant stakeholders in the implementation of various projects.
However, some NGOs are not doing well in reporting to authorities on the progress,” Kavalo said.
He says this affects the council in following up various projects that targets residents, adding lack of reporting frustrated efforts to achieve transparency and accountability.
“We are partners and therefore we need to be updating one another on how the projects are going on so that we can be able to track the progress,” he said.
Meanwhile, he added that the meeting has come up with various resolutions to deal with the hiccup, which are, among others, NGOs will be required to submit reports to Technical Working Groups (TWGs) where it will be reviewed and presented to the District Executive Committee at the council level.
“We hope that this arrangement will cut costs that many NGOs were running away from to organize DEC meetings to present the progress report of their projects,” he added.
Meanwhile, NGORA says measures have been put in place to ensure CSOs adhere to required standards.
During the engagement, the council provided updates on the completed and ongoing projects from various funding channels including Government to Enable Service Delivery (GESD).
