Showing posts with label corruption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corruption. Show all posts

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Right to Information in Zunheboto

After a week and a half without internet and barely any mobile phone reception, I'm back online!

Last Wednesday, Youthnet and the Zunheboto Range Students Union held a Right to Information (RTI) hearing in the Zunheboto Town Hall. It was 4 hours long and mostly in Sumi, with a fair bit of Nagamese and English. The story has since been covered by all the major newspapers: the Nagaland Post, the Morung Express and the Eastern Mirror.

RTI Public Hearing, Zunheboto

It's risky business here trying to unearth corruption, and I admire the brave members of Youthnet for what they do. This wasn't the first time they'd done what they call 'social auditing' in Nagaland. The process involves an initial meeting with members of the community where they are invited to voice any specific problem areas. They then visit and audit the respective departments to look for discrepancies in the way allocated funds have been spent. A public hearing is then held to openly discuss their findings with the public.

Joshua and Hekani from Youthnet addressing the crowd at the start of the hearing
RTI Public Hearing, Zunheboto

H S Rotokha speaking as an observer at the end of the hearing
RTI Public Hearing, Zunheboto

RTI Public Hearing, Zunheboto

The turnout from the Zunheboto public for the hearing was a little underwhelming though. A few concerned citizens showed up, but most of the adults were representatives from the various departments that had been audited. The vast majority of attendees were students from two nearby schools who were asked to come to see democracy in action. It was important for them to come and see that it was possible to make a difference to how society functioned. I hope some of them got the message, though I suspect getting them to willingly sit through another 4 hours in a freezing hall is going to be difficult.

Joshua even presented a little chart about the effects of corruption for the benefit of the students.
RTI Public Hearing, Zunheboto

Over the 4 hours, many issues were examined, including the lack of sufficient medical staff residing in Zunheboto, the lack of provision of the midday meal by schools, the need for a new water source to cope with the current demand. It was also found that out of 31 'beneficiaries' of the Chief Minister's Corpus Fund - a fund that provides capital to help small enterprises start up, none of them were currently in operation. Youthnet provided a list of these 31 'beneficiaries' along with the various amounts allocated to them.

RTI Public Hearing, Zunheboto

One item in particular has featured heavily in my commute from Nito Mount to the main town area, as well as in many discussions I've had with people: the state of the roads in Zunheboto. The front page of Monday's Nagaland Post even had photo of a road in Zunheboto that was more sand than gravel. A year ago I saw them repaving the road in Project Colony in 'downtown' Zunheboto. One monsoon season later, and most of it has already been washed away.

Zunheboto is a major town in Nagaland, but it's clearly not the most pleasant place to live in Nagaland. The RTI hearing has caused quite a stir across Nagaland, if the local papers are anything to go by. I hope that as people start taking ownership of their town that things will get better. Then maybe there'll be enough water, reliable power and better phone reception and internet connectivity.