By Staff Writer
THE Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) has unveiled a new campaign encouraging citizens to demand transparency and accountability.
The socioeconomic justice coalition established in February 2000 to facilitate citizens` involvement in making public policy more pro-people and pro-poor believes citizen agency is crucial.
“Following the strengths of the #HowFar campaign (2021) which asked duty-bearers key accountability questions, we are launching the next phase, the #TakeAction campaign & the CitizenApp.
“The #TakeAction campaign is a call to action for all citizens to raise their agency through demanding transparency and accountability. Beyond asking duty-bearers to account (#HowFar), the current campaign is a call to action for citizens to go the extra mile.
“Citizens can utilize the CitizenApp to upload reports in video, picture and narrative formats,” said the coalition.
The agency said Zimbabwe continues to face serious public accountability and transparency questions seen through the corruption scandals that break every day and such cases occur at all tiers of governance and life including central and local government.
“This persistent loss of public resources has caused citizen’s lives to get harder as service delivery becomes poorer and the economic indicators continue to fall. The brunt of this crisis is faced by the poor & vulnerable!
“The CitizenApp and #TakeAction campaign require all stakeholders to come together to develop a culture of accountability and integrity,” said ZIMCODD.
This is to say, citizens, civil society, the media and indeed the government can accrue value through the application. Citizens can upload reports, journalists can gather evidence for investigative pieces while public institutions such as the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission & Zimbabwe Republic Police can investigate the reported cases.
The application receives reports report mismanagement of public resources, service delivery issues, corruption etc.
The application goes further to provide citizens with utility services such as job posts, the Maintenance in Action program. Further to that, we are calling on all stakeholders seeking to plug into the application with their services to reach out.
