Lack of accounting mechanisms, poor maintenance of records and also poor people’s participation came to surface during a social audit of an outreach clinic in Genekha in Thimphu, yesterday.
The social audit was carried out by the Society for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency (SSAAT).
SSAAT is an independent society set up by the Department of Rural Development of the Government of Andhra Pradesh, India to conduct social audits of welfare schemes.
The Outreach Clinic (ORC) in Zomtog village of Genekha Gewog in Thimphu was taken up as a case study. The village had received Nu. 400,000 from the gewog for the construction of the ORC. But the villagers came up with an arrangement. They decided to contribute free labor and timber for the construction of the ORC so that they can use almost half of the budget to buy artifacts for the village temple.
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During the social audit of the Outreach Clinic carried out yesterday by the Society for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency, SSAAT, it was found there was no proper accounting mechanism in place in the community. Poor people’s participation and maintenance of records also came to light.
“How do you account for it? I mean how much do you account for all the free labour and for all the contribution? See if it is purely a contribution I don’t have a problem but here it is coming through a government sanction,” said SSAAT’s Director, Sowmya Kidambi.
Villagers of Zomtog had made free labour contribution for a month. The social audit team found out that if the villagers are to be paid daily wages the labor cost would come to Nu.180, 000. Similarly, the value of the free timber contributed by the villagers amounted to over Nu.220,000.
Sowmya Kidambi, said there has to be some kind of guidelines in place to guide such community project.
The programme was carried out as part of the social audit training of potential social auditors in local schemes in five gewogs of Thimphu. It is organised by the Anti-Corruption Commission in collaboration with Department of Local Governance and the Royal Institute of Management.
