By Foday Moriba Conteh
A training exercise was conducted on the 8th July, 2021 for the Karene District Council on grant management by the Project Management Unit under the European Union (EU). The training programme took place at Kamakwie, the District Headquarter Town.
According to the Human Development expert, Sullay Mintiegmah the process is to help guide beneficiaries of the 25 million Euro EU grant to manage the funds well.
He noted that Karene is also a beneficiary of a one million euro grant which is 13 billion Leones to support civil society and local authorities.
Underscoring the importance of the grant to the district, Sullay Mintiegmah reemphasized the need for the District Council to consider effective timely reporting, ownership, inclusion, transparency and accountability for a successful implementation of the project.
The training involved procurement processes, basic rules for grant contracts and special conditions of grant through a presentation by the Finance and Operations Expert, Lameeck Siage.
One of the beneficiaries of the training, Abdul Aziz Kamara who is the Accountant of the Karene District Council said the training is helpful to him and has opened his eyes to take cognisance in order to follow due process before disbursing funds out.
The Chief Administrator of Karene District, Gbawuru Sillah however expressed concern over the exponential rise of prices on most of the items they listed in their project proposal which might pose a challenge to them during the implementing stage of the project.
“Other Councils have already started facing challenges and we are concerned, that is why we have brought the matter forward to the PMU so that they can take note of that,” he noted.
Sillah also added that the good thing is that they did not outline the number of stalls to build in the proposed market project, “It is now the responsibility of the engineer to draw a plan that will fit the budget so that we are not faced with similar challenges,” he ended.
Construction of a market and fencing of the community centre is part of the project proposal of the Karene District that was approved by the EU.
