By Anna liza Cabrido/PNA
GENERAL SANTOS CITY – The provincial government of South Cotabato is working on the expansion of its flagship transparency and integrity program next year.
Jennifer Bretana, chief of the Provincial Planning and Development Office, said Wednesday preparations are underway for the replication of the South Cotabato for Integrity and Jobs or i-South Cotabato program in five municipalities.
Bretana said the municipal governments of Tupi, Suralah, Lake Sebu, Norala, and Tampakan will implement the program’s rollout with the South Cotabato Integrity Circle, a civil-society led body that will supervise the program.
“They are now ready to embrace changes in government transactions at their level and made overall governance corruption-free and more business-friendly,” she said.
She said the municipal governments of Surallah, Lake Sebu, and Tampakan have issued executive orders “as an initial step to raise the bar of integrity in their governance.”
Bretana, who heads the Integrity Circle secretariat, said they have set a series of engagements with the five municipalities early next year to address their training needs in line with the program’s implementation.
She said the integrity program involves 24 mechanisms, which pushes for the institutionalization of governance reforms to help curb corruption.
The program acknowledges that corruption is a constant threat to the integrity of public decision-making by local governments like South Cotabato and should be effectively addressed, she said.
In the case of the provincial government, she said the mechanisms that it adopted are fully working and being sustained in coordination with the private sector.
These include the inclusion of the private sector representatives in the local government’s bids and awards committee.
Under the program, suppliers and contractors were required to sign the integrity pledge to make them aware that the provincial government is seriously practicing the culture of integrity and honesty.
The South Cotabato provincial board approved last year the creation of barangay governance and empowerment committees to ensure that the practice of integrity and honesty goes down to the municipalities and barangays.
The integrity program, which started three years ago, was an offshoot of the rollout in the province in 2014 of the European Union (EU)-supported Partnership for Integrity and Jobs Project or Project I4J.
Its implementer, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), chose South Cotabato as among the eight pilot areas in the country.
Co-funded by the EU and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development through KAS, Project I4J focuses on the development of integrity mechanisms and business promotion procedures in all its pilot areas through the help of the private and business sectors.
