By witnessradio.org Team
Government has been asked to work towards enabling Ugandans access information for improved service delivery in the infrastructure sector.
The call was made by the executive director Africa Freedom center Glibert Sendugwa during a two days media training on the CoST Uganda project hosted by the center.
Sendugwa says that there is a lot of information hidden from the public on contracts in the infrastructure sector and this has to change.
“Currently the Uganda government avails only 12% of information to the Citizens, this is very low. Countries like Ethiopia have reached a 40 percent mark” Mr. Gilbert Sendugwa said.
He said government has continued to avail information about contracts during the commissioning of projects but at the end nothing is done and following up such projects becomes a problem.
CoST is a multi-sector initiative with participating countries in four countries. CoST promotes transparency by disclosing data from public infrastructure investment, helping to inform and empower citizens to help them hold decision makers to account.
Speaking at the same training workshop, the spokesperson ministry of works, Susan Kataike appealed to the journalists to always do research for better stories.
“The problem with journalists in Uganda is that they don’t research, they come to you with allegations, at least have 80 of the information then I give you the 20% to complete the story.” She challenged journalists.
Meanwhile the vice chairperson multisector group [MSG] Enock Nimpamya promised that his commission will continue to work with the media for more transparency in the infrastructure sector.
