Social Audit

Network For Research and Governance, working together with our, under Uwajibikaji na Bajeti Mashinani (Accountability for Community Budget advocacy) project, is bridging this gap by introducing social audit. This is a process through which all details of public projects are scrutinized by its target populations. It seeks to evaluate how well public resources are used to meet the priorities outlined by the communities throughout the budget cycle. It examines all aspects of a public project i.e., management of finances, officers responsible, bookkeeping, access to information, accountability, and levels of public involvement.

Social accountability refers to the various actions, tools and mechanisms that can be used by civil society organizations (CSOs), the media, citizens and communities to hold elected public officials and public servants accountable. Accountability initiatives have a great potential to serve the interests of vulnerable and marginalized groups, whether they are women, children or the disabled. Various strategies and tools have been developed and are being used to promote social accountability i.e., participatory budgeting, public expenditure tracking, social audit, citizen report cards, and community scorecard. Social accountability has the potential to contribute to poverty reduction by ensuring a more pro-poor policy design and improved service delivery

Our social audits are organized around a robust network of community action teams drawn from across the 60 wards of Kakamega County. We also have a strong team of Network for research and Governance Budget champions who are crucial in National and sub national budget analysis, training of community action teams, mobilization of citizens for public participation and guiding on the process of social audit.

Community action teams (CATs) are coalitions of young leaders and grassroots serving organizations that mobilize their communities to be civically engaged. They actively help in screening actual community development priorities and tracking implementation of deliverables through the social audit process.

Maraba, Shinyalu and Emanyinya community action teams were formed to pursue community priorities at their respective locations.. Maraba community action team comprised of 14 members spearheaded by NRG budget champions

MARABA MCAT

First Community engagement Meeting/Screening

In 2022 we prioritized Nabongo dispensary for social audit targering improvement of service delivery and upgrade of facility. The screening was held at Maraba PAG church consisting of 60 participants, with an objective of ensuring the community understand the concept of social accountability and meaningful public participation .our key partner Inform Action used the film approach with relevant experience in Shinyalu tea factory, where farmers were demonstrating against stalled tea factory and lack of involvement by the County government.

Participants were given opportunity to give their views on what they have observed in the film and they can relate with their issues to demand service delivery.

Identification of Priority Projects

Community members present were tasked to identify priority projects in Maraba area. The following projects were identified and ranked according to their priorities as follows:

1. Level 2 hospitals

2. Insecurity (mass floodlights)

3. Sewerage and waste disposals.

4. Box culverts and footbridge

In these case Nabongo Dispensary was identified as a key project for social audit.

Training Community Action Team on Social Audit

These team had a full day training at Baaz hotel within Maraba area on Social audit process, courtesy of inform Action. 14 Participants were trained and also enlightened on how inform Action operates.

Familiarizing with Social audit Tool/Questionnaire

Participants were required to understand the social audit tool before they asses the level 2 hospital. The Questionnaire tool was broken down into 8 segments as follows:

• Governance
• Infrastructure in the facility
• Equipment in the facility
• Staffing at the facility
• Availability of drugs in the facility
• Access to information in the facility
• Financial support from the County government
• Public Participation

 Assessment of Nabongo Dispensary Entry Point

The Community Action Team deliberated, on how best to approach the health facility and finally proposed to send two representatives, to pay courtesy call and inform the management about the exercise and schedules. The Management was friendly and agreed to offer necessary information and support during the assessment. Community action team were grouped into 4 and they were supposed to conduct the activity in two days, Morning sessions and afternoons.

 Review Meeting on Findings & Challenges with MCAT

Through Inform Action partners, the Community action team converged at Maraba PAG church to present the draft report on the findings and challenges, after the social audit exercise. These was to inform another meeting with the community members in terms of giving feedback.

The community feedback meeting was held at Maraba PAG church, with the aim of disseminating findings and challenges during the social audit activity at Nabongo dispensary.

Findings

Governance

1. The facility was established in the year 2007 with registration number 16059
2. The Facility has 20 Members in the management committee (FMC) 3 male and 17 Female.
3. The FMC rarely meets, only when funds are available.
4. The facility has a procurement committee and maintains minutes of the meetings.
5. Unused land and the facility is not properly fenced.

Our auditors identified a number of gaps in terms of infrastructure and facilities including lack of an of incinerator and triage section inadequate commodities due to lack of supplies from KEMSA

Availability of Drugs

• The facility replenishes drugs for inventory on monthly basis, however a spot check revealed that there were no drugs in the pharmacy section.
• The facility does not receive all the requested drugs but few i.e painkillers.
• The Facility has a system of managing drug inventory both manual and computerized.

After the submission of the Memo and follow up during subsequent public participation for the county budget the facility was allocated Kshs one million in the financial year 2023-2024 ward based budget for renovation of Nabongo Dispensary.

Others include allocation of Kshs 4 million towards piping water from Mwiyala junction to Ebwambwa to Emulele village, 4.5 million for ECD construction at Ebwamba Primary school, mantainance of Sichirai P.A.G road among others.

Shinyalu community action team has been handy in advocating for the operationalization of Madala tea factory in Shinyalu sub county where no work has been going on since its launch  in 2017. The Community action team established that out of the first allocation of 60 million only feasibility studies and the launch was achieved. There are no physical structures on the land whose ownership still has a pending court process. In 2023 in collaboration with Inform Action the team managed to make high level engagements with County of Kakamega executives led by Deputy Governor Mr. Ayub Savula, farmers and other stakeholders to champion for the operationalization of the project.