The Executive Director of Insight Initiative for Community and Social Development, Jare Tiamiyu, has called for greater transparency and accountability in the administration of local governments in Osun State, urging journalists to intensify scrutiny of council finances and projects in the public interest.
Tiamiyu made the call on Friday during a stakeholders’ engagement tagged “Reporting for Grassroots Accountability: Strengthening Osun Local Government Through Public Interest Journalism,” held at the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Press Centre in Osogbo.
Speaking at the event, he said the organisation has spent the last nine months implementing the second phase of the Osun Open LG Project, aimed at making local government administration more open and accessible to citizens.
According to him, the project is focused on ensuring that residents have access to information on funds allocated to local governments, how such funds are utilised, and the activities being carried out at the grassroots.
“In the last nine months, we have been working on the second phase of Osun Open LG. The focus is to ensure local governments in Osun are open to the public, what is happening, the funds that come in and how they are spending it,” he said.
Tiamiyu explained that the organisation had organised several engagement sessions and capacity-building programmes for local government chairmen to improve budget preparation and public engagement in line with modern governance practices.
He added that the initiative also developed the Amojye Chat Box, a WhatsApp-based application designed to provide citizens with information on local government activities from the comfort of their homes.
The Executive Director said the programme was also aimed at exposing governance gaps within the local government system while promoting transparency and accountability.
“Why we are here today is because we want to tell the whole world what we have been able to discover in the local government. The way local governments have been run is not pleasant, there is no transparency and accountability. When you have access to public funds, you are holding the common wealth of everybody,” he stated.
He alleged that in some local governments, projects presented by council chairmen were not approved by legislative councils, raising questions over how public funds were being committed to such projects.
Tiamiyu called on journalists to investigate local government finances and demand explanations from council officials on revenue, expenditure and project implementation.
“We are asking the media to help us ask them how much was received by the local governments, how the money was spent and the details of their expenditure,” he said.
He acknowledged that local governments have continued to pay workers’ salaries and statutory allocations to traditional institutions but maintained that citizens deserve to know how public resources are managed.
“The people deserve to know how much has been spent, how much remains and how their common wealth is being utilised,” he added.
The event brought together journalists, civil society organisations and other stakeholders to discuss the role of public interest journalism in strengthening transparency, accountability and good governance at the grassroots level in Osun State.
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