Though fervent support was provided to the ‘Men on Mission’ initiative as soon as it was launched last year, Chief-of-Staff of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Brigadier Godfrey Bess assured Guyanese on Monday that the body is focused on accountability so that public resources are used effectively to help as many people as possible.
Brigadier Bess, who is the Chairman of the initiative, said that scores of people have been assisted through this programme since it was launched.
He, however, noted that the body is now keenly focused on ensuring that all resources are properly accounted for.
Earlier this year, $500 million was allocated to the Men on Mission (MoM) initiative in the National Budget.
“The fact that we are spending government funding and even donations, we’ve established a finance committee and we also have an audit committee that is working to ensure that proper accountability is maintained in what we do,” Brigadier Bess highlighted during a press conference held on Monday.
While those systems are in place now, the Chairman of MoM’s Public Relations Committee Alex Graham said some amount of accounting for previous centuries is needed.
According to him, the President’s call for more men to get involved in community-building efforts was met with much alacrity. And as such, robust systems to account for time and/or resources given were not immediately in place.
He, however, emphasised that enough data has been recorded. Now, the MoM financial team is tasked with properly accounting for resources already deployed.
“What I want to caution is that, especially in the early days of support of this effort, quantifying may sometimes be difficult.
“It’s not going to happen going forward because we have now been able to work on putting the structures in place but those very early efforts really were the overwhelming responses of volunteers who were focused on accounting more than they were focused on accounting,” Graham said.
Further, Graham assured members of the public that key financial structures are in place now to guarantee accountability in the execution of programmes and projects.
The ‘Men on Mission’ initiative, launched last year by President Dr. Irfaan Ali, has provided relief to scores of people while fostering community among men in guyana.
On Monday, during the press conference hosted at the GDF’s Base Camp Ayanganna in Georgetown, Brigadier Bess highlighted that the organisation will be focused on five key areas this year.
Those are: male behaviour change through character building, men’s health, environmental transformation, capacity building for emergency relief efforts and rehabilitation.
