Monrovia — Naymote, Partners for Democratic Development, in continuation of its citizens engagement exercise, has embarked on holding town hall styled meetings with communities' members on the President Meter Report.
The report is an independent monitoring tool that enables Liberians and civil society actors to evaluate the performance of President George M. Weah and the Coalition for Democratic Change against promises made during and after the election.
It also seeks to monitor, track, document, rate, and report on the performance of the President of Liberia during and after the election, as well as track his development agenda since his inception.
The exercise is held under the auspices of the Democracy Advancement Program (DAP), funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).
The meetings over the weekend were held in Banjor Community, Montserrado County District #17 and Caldwell, #11, and brought together over 250 residents including youths, women groups and elders.
"We decided to roll out our town hall meeting with community leaders, women, youth, and different political parties to discuss the President's Meter Report as an accountability tool," said Eddie Jarwolo, Naymote's Executive Director.
"Not many understand what we do, so we taught it wise to come out on the field and have meetings with our people to understand what the President Meter is all about, why we are doing it now, how we're doing it, and what benefits it will bring to our Democratic process," he added.
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During his presentation, Mr. Jarwolo stated that the President Meter Project was launched in 2018 and since then, every year in January, the organization unveils the report. This year's report, he said, was launched in January.
He said as the Weah's administration entered its last year, it was important to engage the citizens and to enlighten them to in turn hold their leaders accountable, adding the exercise is not political.
"We want to inform our people in today's meeting about the methodology used, the level of transparency in the process, and where we are," he said.
Also speaking, the residents thanked Naymote for the enlightenment, especially in an election year.
"This is a unique program that will help citizens hold their leaders accountable. It is my first time hearing about the project and I hope Naymote will extend it to other communities," said Elisha J. Momoh, a resident of Banjor.
Alhaji M. Sheriff added: "I am happy to have been invited to this important forum today. This is a unique tool to promote accountability. Naymote has enlightened us, the citizens, to take on this initiative. So, as members of our community's intellectual platform, we will surely engage our candidates. We will invite them to our platforms to tell us why we should elect them, and we will document these promises and hold them accountable."
